It Can't Hurt, Much

I wish I could blame it on the drugs...but I haven't had anything stronger than that sip of wine that made me break out in a rash this last weekend--and no, Beth, that is not the usual reaction I have to alcohol. Maybe super flushed cheeks, but being as pale as I am, that comes with the territory. The rash is obviously a sign that hi, maybe I my body is fighting too hard?

If I want to use my logical brain, I can chalk all of this up to fevered dreams...Vivid, fevered dreams....that somehow are connecting with real life far too well. Okay, let's scratch the logic...I know, I can easily blame it on my superstitious upbringing. But it's only superstitious if you aren't a part of my family or culture, cuz if you are? It's just what happens.

The ghost bull really does roam around my dad's town, and it really did once burn his horse's flank as it was chasing him home. My mom can curse me forever with just a foul thought, cuz mom's curses stick. If you give a child "el ojo" they will get sick and we'll have to dig up an egg and do that ceremony to make the bad go away...

Seriously, people, Mexican Catholicism accepts all that...and more, is it a wonder I can't just shake this all off? It's not too strange a thing for a series of my dreams to keep touching this world, is it? And really I want to very much to believe cuz the latest one...it might bring someone back that I really miss and worry about.

It's all a jumble, and I wrote it down as it came to me...and I'm just going to share, especially after a friend just called...and he was only a part of the first bit of the dream...so here's to making things come into being:

I'm on a boat that drives on land, and if that's not odd enough, my X is there but he's not called by the same name. The friend whose message I just got was helping us move the boat, my boat, to a new "parking slip." It's raining and horrible, and the air is filled with the muddy smell of the Elkhorn Slough as a tidal way of muck comes up out of nowhere to cover 32 feet of sailboat; it comes down through all the open hatches...cards and posters my students gave me as going away gifts, begin to melt in the muddy stew that douses the boat. I run out clutching the only thing that survived the deluge--a letter from a childhood friend that told me to go away until I "grew up." The smell...I didn't know I could smell in dreams.

I jump to one of too many nights arguing about subjects that have nothing to do with the real world while sitting in a restaurant in my pajamas having my hand massaged to avoid a terrible migraine...she's sitting next to me and I almost shock myself awake.

Then I jump again, back to when I was fourteen and so is she and we've just met in our English Lit. class. She and another girl are wondering what a song is called, the other girl sings a bit..."When in Rome," I answer as I'd just heard it that morning in my dad's car.

Then I'm intruding in my own dream...am I really remembering such detail or is it the answer I'm supplying coming from me as an adult...as someone who still might have that song as an mp3 cuz sometimes you need pop songs in your life. But I'm doubting the memory, it's a dream, I know it's a dream and I feel so young and stupid and sad. Before then, though, I don't think I could have told you about the moment...and did I know the answer or was it supplied by someone else...

I dwell too much on it, but don't wake, instead the scenery has changed and we are older. We're at a friend's house. Was it a birthday party at Carla's that I got to go to? Or a Saturday night at Lily's? Lily is there, french braiding her hair. Perfect part, perfect sections of hair...I interrupt myself almost crying out that it's not a wonder how creative and brilliant they both turned out to be, but instead we talk about...I'm not sure, I'm losing myself in the moment, so happy I have them around again, where did you go?

Out of time and place now, we're speaking like adults, but still seem school-aged. We might even be younger than we were when we first met. It's getting harder not to think about what's going on, and I'm so afraid to adulterate the dream. I want it to continue but can't help crying and asking why she asked me to stop contacting her. What horrible thing did I do to make her want to put space between us. What horrible "mess" did she get in that made her break contact with so many others. The things we say are awkward. I can't understand her reasons. It's obviously the first time we've spoken since that email...

And then I wake up, a jumble of emotions fighting to take hold...

And if you've made it this far, let's keep going to the brink of absurdity: when I went into my gmail account to fish out that last email from her, to look at the date? The ad that pops up is for Madam Zola, Voodoo Worker. Because I might need her services to be a spiteful wench? Or is it to make me laugh, like the spam recipes that pop up when you're cleaning out that folder?

Okay, it's out there so it's time for the holding my breath/screaming out "I believe in fairies!"/third time is the charm bit...maybe? Please?