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Wednesday, June 29, 2016. In the middle of working slowly through my apartment going through things, readying to move come September. Who knows how exactly I will travel or where I will end up? I sure don’t. Not yet. This is a very difficult time for me.
As I cleaned out a Sterlite container this morning filled with my “office stuff” – 3-ring hole punch, small glass jar full of paperclips, collections of unused assorted cards, and more – I discovered a spiral notebook with only six lined pages still included in it.
I just read those pages and am left with “WHAT?”
I am NOT going to travel anywhere keeping this silly piece of writing, dated Tuesday, October 22, 2013 – DREAMS.
So this is a kind of place-setting introduction here followed by dream (1) and then dream (2). I think of my graduate training as an art therapist during which we were taught to “work with dreams as we work with art images.”
There are images in these pages, that’s for sure! Do they make any sense? Not particularly – not that I can see – not that I even care to comprehend.
I also think about the fact that for the majority of my years now-a-days I NEVER remember dreams. So why did I write these down? I do not know! No idea.
But before I throw this beat up spiral remnant from my past, I am going to write these dreams into a post – for NO plausible reason that I can come up with!
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Today I note that these dreams arrived at the end of the second week I had been back to North Dakota, having completely torn apart everything about my life for the past 16 comfortable years I spent living 1,700 south in a rural southeastern high desert Arizona area along the Mexican border.
I had come back to North Dakota, having once lived here and in this area for 20+ uncomfortable years. I, on my own, would NEVER have come back here but there was crisis in my family and I could not stay away.
Right as I began to record what’s on these few sheets of lined paper into digital form I literally began to feel quite sick to my stomach. Is this a sign to trash these papers without leaving any sign behind that they ever existed at all?
So I guess I will fight my way through this visceral reaction I am having to this effort to record what follows. These are the ONLY sheets of paper stored within my “office space” here. I must have kept them for some reason.
Here and now I find them again, in the process of preparing to acknowledge the ending of my nearly three year tenure here. This geographical area and its human culture have NEVER been good for me! I would guess that within the operations of these two dreams much of what I find difficult about living here is expressed.
I will transcribe the dreams – but I will not look any closer at what feels to be isolation patterns and difficulties with human interactions and communication expressed in them. All of this today? Strange. Strange. Strange!
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Note: A few days after my arrival back up here I traveled with my daughter on a work trip she had to take into north-central rural North Dakota.
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DREAM (1): Something Happened – or – Space Junk
From coming up to Turtle Mountain and from being back here – the common patterns and familiar northern rural life – as the seasons change – snow crunching on sidewalk and grass-creeping into spaces around buildings in the shade – trees bare. Summer shutting down.
Patterns of collections of “the common” humanity – blending of voices/pitches rise and fall/laughter – peppered as they chatter about a common, shared life – of what? Of nothing. Of something. Of anything.
All the workplaces of the many. Long shadows of morning light shrinking into day – highlighting edges of scattered low clouds. In the evening all reverses – people – most having left work – after supper – dark out – phone calls begin to travel.
“So and So (s/s) just found something very strange.” – form made of metal – new – shiny from yard light – sitting between parking lot berms – on grass beside wall – along front of s/s’s Boat’n’Bait Shop on Hwy #? “It was just sitting there to the left of his door (shining in amber yard light). Almost to his arm pits.”
More parts and pieces discovered around the countryside – in front of someone’s gate on dirt road when returning from Casino – at fork in road – one neighbor pondering piece/how to move it/other fork neighbor comes along – cell phones ring – stop working near pieces.
Curiosity grows – nothing appears criminal – (long time before local law enforcement finds out) – the magic words eventually enter the circling cell phone chatter – “space probe.”
“It’s gotta be a space probe! We’ve been probed! Or have we? Who would send one here in pieces? Nothing is smashed or broken like it would have been if it crashed.”
Whole community has to cooperate – whose pickup? Who helps load parts? Where should they meet to bring the parts together?
Usual bedtimes come and go. Sleep = last thing on minds.
“Let’s meet at Alco – s/s and s/s – go first and save a space/no parking – direct traffic for deliveries and spectators.”
A sense of “If you build it they will come” grows. “Star Trek” and “Space Balls” and UFO stories create a kind of a wonderment even in the most straight-laced.
The “We are not alone” feeling makes the growing crowds feel bigger than the humans filling them.
Odd shaped shiny pieces begin to arrive in mud-caked pickups – “We have to figure out a way to put this thing together.”
“How? And how big is this thing?”
“What is it? Must be junk if it landed here (in the middle of nowhere)” –
(Perhaps this happens other places in nation)
“Where did this come from?”
Finally law enforcement appears in Alco parking lot (after hours – now in the middle of the night) – Call the Feds?
Nobody does. “It’s OUR mystery!”
Where are the rest of the pieces?
–Junk could not appear ONLY where people would find it
–Who are the rural geeks and engineers who could “decide” how this goes together?
–Found!! Parts fitting together – “It IS a probe!” “We put together our own probe!” “Take it apart!”
–After all that went into getting it this far?
Debriefing
——– Whole thing was a game! A research game – with interviews/forms after. “Who did you interact with? – Differently than usual? How did this feel?”
How/feel/whole thing?
“Would you rather that this had never happened?”
# end notes dream one #
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DREAM (2): Accidents Happen – or – Rowdy Crowd
Set outside a small town – maybe 20K? Central person = Sheila? Woman – upper crust money – above the average crowd – had no idea how to engage with “regular people” – 5 apes escape transport truck on main line through town – driver made choice to divert off route – (reason?) – What were chances apes could escape – AND close door behind them?
Woman – Sheila – confides in housecleaner – nobody knows she moved into posh country home of retired rich entrepreneur older man unmarried – (not even “success of marriage”) – could not have kids – holds head too high in public – story of his shoe fetish and closets full of stolen hotel towels – enema and the master bedroom all mirrored bathroom walls –
Man died w/o will – time passing – she will be expunged – where will she go? (Vac carpets/leave patterns) – truth – so lonely – disconnected
The apes show up romping on her fancy wooden deck in middle of the night – racket – potted begonias – pale green wicker pieces thrown over the railing – she calls no one – the world has met her where she is – she sinks her teeth in, determined – to make time stand still – who will know?
How does she keep the apes from leaving? One is long haired red hair – her favorite – Sheila names her Jill.
Locks them into 5 stall garage with 2 collectible – roadsters? (restored and worth money) – Sheila won’t get them/she’ll get nothing – ex-wife/his kids/will take it all
“Accidents happen!” After 12 years of caring for Andy as if he were her China gentleman doll – no thanks from his kids – cantankerous man! Who deserves to get what?
Let the rowdy crowd go at it – need to get them food and water – how does she get her own car out without crowd escaping? (her car – title in her name – at least she got that much taken care of – his image car for when she went to town shopping) –
What does she feed them? Must go to another town where she is unknown – not to raise local eyebrows/suspicion at buying hoards/hordes of bananas and barrels of grapes – unnoticed?
All takes planning – run in door – open window only so far/remove screen/close so can’t escape/wide enough to throw in all his old food – boxes of cereal, bags of pasta – everything, anything to keep the crowd entertained – packets of paper Sweet-n-Low, butter pecan ice cream, stale rolls of Italian bread – challenge – to get her car out – enter garage and toss the food into opposite far corners away from her car – never had a garage door opened so slowly – closed even more slowly!
—-Young male, Charlie, got out – in spite of her efforts – talk about prioritizing! She headed out the rock bordered circular driveway as Charlie hunched away under a (twin spire) pine. The good of the one against the good of the many?
On her return – car full of “party food” for her supposed 25th anniversary celebration – she had cheerfully described to the large chain grocery store clerks who had assisted her –
—-a maroon 4-door car pulled off the road 100’ from her house – on the side opposite her drive (as Sheila steered around the last curve before her driveway) – young woman in denim Bermudas and flip-flops – thick brown hair in swinging ponytails – bobbing sideways along the shoulder peering around bushes –
—-Sheila knew with speeding heartbeats her secret was at least partly discovered
——–What to do next?
–Sheila recognized Betty who loved to run the trail around Lake Pheasant any time the weather was nice and her ex-husband had their twin Brownie Scout girls for visitation.
–Let Charlie ape go and feign complete surprise at Betty’s glimpse of a long-limbed foreigner frolicking in the forest? Calls would be made; apes do not fall from the sky. This crowd came from somewhere.
Sheila both knew and didn’t know enough, too much and not enough about this drama that had rapidly enveloped her – reacted by firmly leaning one elbow across her car horn while smiling widely as she sent a giddy wave toward bobbing Betty. – A plausible reaction – sacrificed Charlie – who no doubt responded by diving deeper into the forest away from Sheila’s catch.
Nosed car into driveway – parked – walked at appropriate speed toward Betty while calling out to her – “Is anything wrong?”
The 20-some-year lie of being Andy’s loyal wife (and now his sad widow) paled in the face of the ridiculous construction Sheila found herself playing out with this pig-tailed ex-prom queen.
She stopped short of “I had no idea apes lived in the wild in this part of the world” – although this angle tempted Sheila who was finding herself feeling so much lighter about her life since she had opened the door to let the ludicrous transpose itself with what used to be the ordinary of her life.
“Never trust a prom queen” must have formed as Sheila’s mantra while her mousey self had passed through her eastern high school a decade before Betty had been born. No chance of having her help herd Charlie back to his companions – so safest track was to play along with Betty’s drama until familiar isolation could again surround Sheila’s home.
# end notes dream two #
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Now I can comfortably take this old spiral notebook out and toss it in the dumpster!
That’s done. I did keep the back cover’s cardboard because it might be useful for something.
(It is inhospitably baking hot out there!)
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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame
Stop the Storm 