Under the shadow of this blog fatigue, I had a shimmer of...something (inspiration isn't accurate) pass behind my eyes (was it visible, like a flutter?), possibly from wine (medicinal of course), physical fatigue, or the fragment of some dreams. It could also be the recent effect of the artsy indy film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is both horrific and beautiful (and I do recommend it).
At any rate, I decided to force myself to write something, just to see if I still had the attention span to do so. So I'll document two dreams I just had, neither of which I can remember completely (I never can), but are the type that haunt the recesses of your mind all day 'til they eventually fade.
The first, to which I attach no meaning, took place in a school bus that was on some sort of tour through a remote fishing-boating community with dirt roads and tiny cabins. Very scenic and rustic, it was a place I wanted more time to explore. Like other reoccurring dreams I have of a school or a huge house that I'm lost in, it was familiar, though I had never been there before. I felt like I was on an adventure, but also nervous, because my mom's 90-something-year-old friend was driving, and not very well. We bumped all over the road, at times off the road, and at one point, we were careening sideways toward some sort of obstruction (A tree? A building?), which reminded me of an accident my friends and I had in high school -- a textbook rain-slicked disaster that ended with a van full of kids wrapped around a large tree on a country road. Coincidence? Who knows. As in the real-life situation, I felt a moment of calm acceptance before the deafening crash and chaos, though in the dream it never came. Instead my mom turned around in the seat in front of me and wondered if maybe she should take over the driving. I woke up thinking, "I'm not sure that's going to be much of an improvement…" (Sorry mom.)
The second dream (it's a bonus that I remembered more than one) was somewhat of a reoccurring theme. Throughout the years, I will occasionally dream of a childhood friend who died when I was around 12 years old. He's always as I remember him – still a boy with bangs, still smiling crookedly, and I'm always so happy to see him. It's frustrating, because something always prevents us from really talking before I wake up, but I always wake up happy and then a little disappointed when I realize it was a dream.
I don't know what drew me and Gary together. Probably because we were both on the fringe of the neighborhood gang. I was the only girl, Gary was the only kid with what people these days call "special needs." I think he was more special than needy though. He was uncoordinated, and his social skills were a little stunted, but he was clever and good at math. He loved to sing, and I think he liked to read the dictionary. He goofed around a lot. He was overly sensitive, but also affectionate and sweet when most boys that age were crude and uncomfortable around girls, even a tomboy like me. I don't remember ever having deep conversations, though he could chit chat for hours. We were just buddies who played cards, bumper pool and Monopoly and, when we were allowed, touch football and baseball with our brothers and the other boys on our street. I was overly protective, he was dependable. Together I think we buffered each other a little bit from being different.
Anyway, these dreams seem to be more infrequent, and now when I dream of Gary, sometimes, I see him as he might be had he grown up. I don't know how I know it's him, but I do, and I'm fascinated. The joy of seeing him is there, but also the frustration, because I need to tell him things. I don't even know what, but it's urgent. Maybe it's just "Hi, I still think of you." Or that I'm sorry for those times I probably took his friendship for granted – like kids do, for ever being impatient or forgetting his physical limitations because I was too busy proving myself to a bunch of boys who, it turns out, I was about a year away from losing as comfortable friends anyway thanks to hormones and middle school. Or for allowing myself to wonder, even as I mourned his death, if it wasn't for the best considering how often he'd be hurt or disappointed the older we got and the more fragile the protective bubble of childhood became. Certainly I would have rather he lived. And I know now he'd probably be OK. So maybe it's just guilt. But whenever I dream of someone I loved who's now gone, it makes me wonder if there's more to it than subconscious memories. Probably not though.
