Monday, October 28, 2013

Hi Dad

Last night I had a dream.  I believe that we comfort ourselves in dreams and learn from them.  Also, I'd like to believe that dreams are ways in which we are touched from other dimensions of experience, so last night I believe that I heard from my dad. 

In the dream I was traveling on a bus to one of my childhood homes in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn.  However, I was not traveling inside the bus, but hanging on the side poised on a ridge.  The bus driver asked if my parents would be upset if they knew how I was riding and I said, "yes."  When I got to the bus stop, which I recognized from memories of taking the bus to that location many times in my youth, I instructed the bus driver to let me off.  As I started to walk away from the bus, he called to me and said I'd left my brief case and bag behind.  So, this was a grownup me.

I continued to walk the streets (Avenue U in Brooklyn) to where we lived.  When I reached our street, nothing looked the same.  Everything had been reconstructed and looked bigger and stranger.  When I got to my house, the whole facade was open and under construction.  My dad was standing in what would have been the living room and said, "how do you like it?  Isn't it cool?"  At the end of the driveway, blocking access to the driveway, were three concrete structures.  Each one house a concrete object:  in the first was a sports car, in the second were a giant pair of sneakers and I can't remember what was in the third.  Dad explained that eventually, these structures would house the "real things."  My father always dreamed of having a mercedes sports convertible and lived most of his adult life in sneakers.  I'm assuming the third structure was for him..

After I entered the house, my dad was no longer there, but a younger version of my mother was, and she seemed frantic because the house was such a mess.  She was dealing with someone (a neighbor?  a worker?) and she was explaining that the house didn't usually look so messy. 

Then it seemed that she was supposed to babysit someone and I said that it would be impossible under the chaotic circumstances, but she said that it would be OK and the parent should just bring the child over. 

That's all I recall of the dream. 

Seeing my dad again was great.  I miss him so much.  Seeing a younger version of my mom was also great.  I think it's obvious that their house was transitioning to the structures in the driveway which looked like giant sepulchres.