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March, 2013
3 11 283/3/13 - Title: "In Search of a Place to Call Home"
Scene one - I have been looking in various single family houses or in other buildings (big rooming or apartment houses) in a university area, walking from place to place and looking at empty or nearly empty places that are all at least two or three stories high. Most are vacant, perhaps because it is spring break. I consider whether they will be good places to buy, for a new residence or for investment.
Scene two - Still in the university area, I meet a couple men, one an older man, who I assume is a father, and one a younger one, probably a university student, and assume he is the father's son. We chat about various things as we are all walking in the same directions.
Scene three - I am in a residential neighborhood, near a house and its yard, and they, in turn, are near a body of water, a small lake or a river, closer to the residences' back yards, whereas there is a road that goes along their fronts.
A rough looking, medium-sized dog, a bulldog I think, aggressively comes out of the front yard area of the closest house toward me, where I am near the road. I think we may have a confrontation and wonder if he will bite. As it happens, however, he prefers to be friendly, even acting, once he gets close, as though we had met before and enjoying it when I pet him and scratch his head and neck.
A woman comes out of the front of that house, perhaps to investigate her dog's actions, and speaks to me in a slightly wary, but cordial enough way. I remind her that we had met before at a small yard gathering or party, in the backyard of one of the other residences near the water.
There is something too about a young person or two, a boy and girl, I think, but nothing more is recalled about that.
Scene four - I am with the woman and her husband (and the small children, I think) who reminds me as well of the father in scene two, and may be he. It seems we are going out to eat together, and meanwhile there is still some thinking and discussion about a place I might buy or rent as a residence for myself. It seems I or we have looked at more than one place in this general area already but that a decision has not yet been made.
3/11/13 - Title: "Me and My Shadow - Out for a Walk in the Dark"
It is night. I am walking beside my Alanon lunch buddy, Carl. He is to my right. The light is dim. At first we are in a car, and I am driving, Carl in the front passenger seat. Though I proceed with backing out of the driveway and then start ahead without hesitation, in fact I am disoriented and confused about the directions, needing then to turn around and head back the other way to get us to where we would walk. Carl probably knew I had gotten it wrong at first, but kept his own counsel.
Then we are rapidly walking, abreast, in nearly complete darkness and down the middle of a narrow street, later turning at the end of a block and continuing in similar fashion.
Next we get to a yard for a large house in a neighborhood. The light is still dim, but there is a barrier in the yard perpendicular to our direction of walking and low enough that we can step on or over it. It is concrete or earthen and probably at the edge of one yard (our destination?), dividing it from the one we had just been on.
There we are met by an enthusiastically friendly dog very much like Puff (though not her). The dog leaps up several feet in eager greeting, as high as our chests or even our shoulders.
[Carl is quite introverted, shy, fearful, easy to anger yet tending more toward depression, and lives a lot in his head, intellectual, a college level teacher, a geologist, also a fossil and rock collector, yet a proud granddad too.
Puff is very self-centered, extroverted, into her feelings, and playful. She too can be very fearful and sad but much more of the time is ready to engage, happy, and easily contented in her active, hedonistic or social pleasures.]
3/28/13 - Title: "Much Care and Confusion, Then Clarity"
Scene one - There are a number of office workers near a blackboard on one wall. Light is coming in from big bright windows at one end of the office area. Mary has been there, one of their main workers and contributors, clearly a vital, valued part of the team, but now is away, and I have the impression her absence is due to serious heart problems for which she has been receiving medical treatment and is convalescing.
Scene two - I am in an area of extreme complexity and traffic congestion and am disoriented. I cannot tell how to go to leave. It seems quite possible to get into one of several long lines of either people (without cars) or cars with people in them and at the end wind up back here where I started.
I try to ask for directions, but people put me off or give answers that do not make sense from my perspective. I want to get into the line of traffic that leads most directly to the airport and to taking a plane to Houston (where Mary lives), intending from there to fly home. Where I am now is more like someplace in the northwest. Houston is south and a little east from here. Where I am eventually headed is in the northeast, directly east from here, except I need to get to Houston first.
Another time, it seems I am (in) Austin wanting to go to Houston, but still with great difficulty with directions, insufficient info, and much congestion and confusion.
Someone I ask tells me to go to his office. He is some type of supervisor. I have trouble finding his office in a business office building, but eventually I do. At some point, someone else has also told me to get into the two lanes of congested bumper-to-bumper, miles long traffic nearest to the right and heading out of town to the south (actually east, I think), that they assure me goes to the airport where there are planes to Houston.
Someone else (actually several others) are workers, like regular employees, and show me how to run across a field that goes down. There are several trees and a depressed area, and supposedly this is another way to get to Houston.
I talk with the manager/supervisor guy in his office. I explain I am trying to get to Houston and out of this place that is so congested and confusing. He seems kind and understanding, even though my impression is that he does not really "get" the problem I am having.
Scene three - Later I find that the congestion is gone. Only a few cars are now on the wide double-lanes to Houston. They are still on my right, and it is clear that that is the way. Traveling there now seems direct and much easier.
[Of Mary, she is my sister-in-law, the widow (who lives in the Houston area) of my late brother Ralph who died of a brain tumor at age 38. Mary is intelligent, competent, but driven, highly controlling and emotional.
Austin is hip, home, familiar, neat, but too hot and congested.
Houston is less hip but more so than, say, Dallas or most other places in TX except Austin. It too, though, is way too confusing and congested, much more so even than Austin.
The Pacific Northwest (where I see myself at the beginning of the dream) has great scenery and outdoor recreational opportunities and a much better climate than Austin, but is relatively dark and unfamiliar. Even though I have very much wanted to live there, when I have lived or visited there in the past I have gotten badly depressed.
The northeastern U.S. is a mixed bag. People I know and like live in NYC, but we are not now close, and it is much more congested and confusing than most anywhere else in the country except maybe Los Angeles. On the other hand, Oneida, NY, where I lived a couple years when in 8th and 9th grade, a small community, was the best, happiest place I ever lived, up till Dad got reassigned to another locale, we had to move, and there was estrangement from my best friend. His mother, whom I see as having been overprotective of him, "chewed me out" for arguing with him, a real bummer/downer. It was a time of great pain, of feeling rejected by both my friend and her, just as I was being for all practical purposes forced to leave and to cut ties too with other school and church friends, a girlfriend, and my friend's father, who was also my pastor, a caring surrogate or substitute father (in place of the real one, who was judgmental and insensitive, as I saw it) for me. Leaving then as I had to at that point was for the time being like the door having slammed shut on the place in reality and in me where I had come closest to genuine happiness.]