I had a dream / the river

It happened last week. I meant to write it down that day, that very morning, so I wouldn't forget any of it. Then I got busy, and a few days passed ... and now all I can remember is that it featured my ex-husband introducing me to his new family, including several kids he's had with his new wife (this was just in the dream – I have no idea if he's actually had more kids with her), and ended with me feeling happiness and compassion for him, suddenly somehow completely cured of that last lingering smudge of resentment and/or contempt that's been dogging me ever since I left him, whenever I happen to think of him.

It seems to be lasting, too. I still don't want anything to do with him, but I no longer have any real negative feelings left toward him. It's a huge relief. Those feelings take up so much space in your heart, when you let them.

Another wonderful thing that's happened this week is that the creek behind our house is finally flowing again. Last Friday it started to rain, and it rained pretty steadily all day weekend. Saturday night on my way home from an awesome restorative yoga class (a gift from my old roommate S., whom I've been enjoying reconnecting with lately) I stopped to check the creekbed and it was still empty. By ten o'clock the next morning it was as full as I've ever seen it, except when it's flooding. I took both dogs back there and we spent over an hour playing at the edge of the water, in the pouring rain. It was Bea's first time ever to experience that kind of water and she loved it.

I love it too. People have written more eloquently than I ever could about the healing properties of water ... so I'll just say, yeah. It works for me. Watching and listening to that creek flow is one of the most calming, affirming and happifying things I know. Every year I wait for the day the flow begins. And every year there it is again.

I've had two job interviews and calls for two more since the last time I wrote. I'm still a little ambivalent, but less and less so as I get more used to the idea of working full-time again. Late this afternoon I got a voicemail from the manager at the job I think would be best, and when I call him back tomorrow I suspect he's either going to ask me back for a second interview or offer me the job. This is the one where I would be driving ten miles, but you can take dogs to work. I've also had several calls from the manager from the other interview, the low-paying one that is closer to home, who is waiting for budget approval from her boss but seems to want to not let me get away in the meantime ....

So – to summarize – still no official offers yet, but things seem to be starting to move. Take it as it comes, I suppose. Even if I don't get any of these jobs, I'm getting a lot of great feedback from people and that always feels good.

And finally, since I seem to be incapable of writing a post that doesn't focus in some way on my anxiety, I'll close by saying that it seems to be mostly pretty manageable lately. I've sort of recommitted myself to cutting way way back on carbohydrates, especially processed sugar, and have been doing well with my exercise "routine," such as it is – basically, two to three yoga classes a week, plus walking the dogs about two miles a day, plus the occasional running on the treadmill (a great way to burn off extra adrenaline and blood glucose, all at the same time). I've had a few bad mornings in the last week or so, but nothing too disabling. It will be interesting to see how the transition back to work affects my chemistry .... I've decided to assume it's going to be just fine, however it all rolls out. Again: Take it as it comes.

What else? I think I might have run over a cat today. I didn't see anything, but I heard a little thump on the side of the car and when I looked in the rear view mirror I saw something (a cat? a possum?) sort of jumping and leaping in place by the side of the road. I turned around at the end of the next block and went back to see if I could help, but by the time I got there, whatever it was was gone. It's sort of been haunting me all day. I've only ever killed three other animals with a car, that I know of – one rabbit, one squirrel, and one bird – all completely unavoidable. Just another reason I'd love to never have to drive.

Don't know why I'm even mentioning that. It seems kind of gloomy. I guess I just don't want to forget that it happened; the life of that little animal, whatever it was, deserves to be acknowledged.

Day 6

I've been on the meds for six days and so far all that's changed is that I have a constant mild headache and am so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open. I thought it was just my usual exhaustion until I went on the message boards this afternoon and found that almost everyone who mentioned side effects said intense drowsiness was the main one they'd experienced. Most people said it only lasts a week or two and then it lifts and they start noticing the therapeutic effect.

If I'm having side effects I guess that means the meds are starting to do something. Aside from being tired and having no interest in anything but sleeping, I'm feeling OK – about the same as usual. This time around the depression seems to be taking a more physical form than it has in the past; before, the emotional symptoms have always been the most upsetting for me. Anxiety sucks. Exhaustion sucks. Any way you look at it, this illness is no fun.

Whatever. I'm ready to start feeling better, and am glad I'm finally back on the drugs. I'm hopeful they will help.

Maybe because I've not been well, I've been missing my family a lot more than usual lately too. I haven't really told anyone about this latest round of blah blah blah; what is there to say, except that it's happening, and I'm doing my best to deal with it? I do need to keep in closer touch though. And to start planning my next visit. I'm way overdue for another shot of family time.

Other than the health stuff, things are going well. We just found out that because of the continuing state budget crisis Mr. A is back to a four-day work week, which we're both very happy about. I'm hoping they'll find a way to let people opt into keeping that schedule – it could be a great, creative way to save the state some cash and I'm sure we're not the only people who would rather have a little extra time than a little extra money.

Same as I reported last week, the house and yard are still good, yoga's good, the dogs – also good. This is what my life revolves around at present. Bea is recovered from her surgery and her belly fur is growing back. She's also teething now and will be for the next several months. Her two middle teeth on the top and bottom have grown in and they're at least three times the size of the baby teeth next to them, which gives her a funny little buck-toothed smile. I've given her a bunch of teething toys of all different textures, shapes and flavors, and so far they've been working – she hasn't chewed up anything important except the heel strap of one of my sandals, which luckily the manufacturer is going to replace for a mere eight bucks. I still don't leave her alone with full run of the place, but she's essentially house trained. Puppy school starts this weekend. She's great on walks. And we're gradually evolving some very satisfying rituals together – the after-dinner walk with the Taterman, the bedtime snack, the morning snugglefest. She's a sweet little girl and it's been a real blessing to have this time to be with her while she's still a puppy.

She does this cute thing when I'm working at the computer where she runs in through the dog door and then jumps up with her paws on the edge of my chair to announce herself – smiling up at me like she's saying, "Hey, it's me! Bea!" Her happy, enthusiastic energy is a nice counterbalance to my lethargy; between the two of us I'd say we're just about normal.

I decided not to see the ex-husband. He doesn't know how to contact me directly right now – he sent me the message through his friend's Facebook account – and I didn't want to give up my contact info to call or email him, even to say I didn't want to see him. I messaged back his friend and gave my PO box address. In my perfect world I would be infinitely flexible and forgiving, loving and gracious and grateful ... But I'm not there yet and right now I need to focus on things that make me feel well. And the thought of seeing him does not do that.

I keep having these dreams about packing up to move into a new house. There are a few different versions; they all have in common the theme of reviewing past possessions and choosing which ones to keep and which to discard, and a feeling of cautious optimism and acceptance. A feeling that I'm moving in a good direction, that everything is going to be OK.

Extended stay

It appears being laid off has left me even more disturbed than I had realized. Several hours into my six-day road trip with a friend, some baggage shifted and as I was leaning into the back seat to straighten it, my friend said something about how lightly I had packed. "I'd never be able to pack just one little bag for a two-week trip."

"Two weeks?" I said.

"Um ... we're going back next Tuesday, so ..."

"Oh. Next Tuesday."

Turns out I had not noticed the actual dates of the trip, and read the "Thursday ... blah blah blah ... Tuesday" part as being the same 4-6 day trip I almost always do when I come here. This is typical of the kind of mistake I might make when my mind is stressed and distracted, but I've never blown it to this degree before. Not that it's such a bad thing, though -- Mr. A is home with the dog and aside from missing them there really isn't any other reason to rush back home on my original schedule.

So I'm here until next Tuesday, and today I'm spending some time planning what I'm going to do. Definitely pump up the tires on my mom's bike, and ride around some. There are hikes I want to do, and friends to catch up with, and lunches to eat at posh mountain resorts ... Also, there's a freelance copywriting project my brother-in-law was nice enough to send my way, which needs to be done by Wednesday.

So the exercise is going to be essential, because my poor mind/body is still freaking out, even though I keep trying to tell it everything is going to be OK. The worst part is the steady stream of rejection dreams -- every night I get kicked out of the car at the side of a road in a strange place, locked out of a building, broken up with by a series of strangely faceless husbands and boyfriends. And it's not just the rejection, it's the humiliation. Almost all of the dreams end with me crying hysterically and begging to be taken back, and waking up drenched in adrenaline and stress chemicals.

So blah blah blah and woe is me, etc. I'm not sure what to do to make this pass any faster, so as usual I'm dumping it all out in this boring online journal in hopes of letting it go long enough to accomplish some work and get some enjoyment out of the day.

On a completely unrelated note: I'm writing this in my dad's office and just noticed the little green plastic wind-up frog I gave him a few years ago sitting on the desk, right in front of a picture of my grandparents. It was just a silly little gift, and he's kept it around all this time. Not only that, but it has a little piece of wire wrapped around it where he's very carefully repaired the mechanism that makes the arms move. For some reason this strikes me as a really sweet thing to have done.

P.S. As for packing too light for a two-week trip, I pack pretty much the same (as much as I can carry without sweating) whether I'm going to be gone for two days or two months, so that wasn't really an issue. I might get some new hiking boots while I'm here though, if I can find some that I like. We did about an 8-mile hike last weekend in some fairly rugged terrain, and hoo boy were my feet killing me by the time we were done. Don't want to repeat that experience, or cut a great hike short because my dawgs are barking.

P.S.2. And another thing -- I'm curious to know why the exact same 6 oz. package of raspberries, with the same label, from the same farm in California, costs $5.99 at home and only $2.48 here. Doesn't it seem like the cost of travel would make it more expensive here, instead of less? Same with the exact same label, exact same farm avocados -- 25 cents each here, vs. $2.99 at home. I will definitely be investigating this situation while I'm here.

A disturbing scene

They were driving in a truck – he was driving, it was an old-fashioned English truck and she turned her head to the right to look at him. His white enormous hands on the wheel, ten and two. Eyebrows raised, fat stub of cigar clenched in his teeth (just from the habit – not lit), lips pulled back. At one time his hair had been nice but not on this day; it was thin and dry, bristly. His skin looked bad, too.

"Still dead then, are you?" she said.

"Oh yeah," he said, talking around the cigar, and opened his jaws to laugh. The cigar fell out and she saw the pale putty-colored roof of his mouth. "I've been dead a loooong time."

Just then the truck went over a deep pothole in the dusty road. They were bounced against the low ceiling of the cab and thrown back into their seats. That was when she woke up.

And knew he didn't love her anymore.
________

I don't know just what this dream is about but it's stayed with me all day. The man in the dream was my old buddy-slash-antagonist Jack, who died a few months ago – someone I never had anything like that kind of relationship with when he was alive.

Usually when someone appears in an obviously symbolic role in some dream, it's pretty clear to me what they represent. This one, I will have to think about.

It started raining this afternoon, the first real rain in months. I know it won't last but I'm enjoying it, washing all the dust away.

Another dream about flying

Tonight on my way home I saw a hawk stretching out its legs in front of its body as it came in to land on a telephone wire, and then grabbing the wire with its claws and coming to rest so gracefully and apparently effortlessly that I couldn't help thinking, "I bet it feels so great to be a hawk!"

I always thought it would be wonderful to be able to fly. I love to swim, too. I do a lot of flying and swimming in dreams; in my waking life, I swim as often as I can, which is not nearly as often as I would like. Something to figure out ... currently there is no public pool in the whole valley – though the city did spend upwards of one million dollars earlier this year on a redesigned duck pond in the middle of the plaza. Yeah, the priorities of the rich. They all have their own pools, I guess.

Speaking of swimming, I had another new version of my "missing the plane/lost in the world" dream the other night – the best one yet. This time I was on the beach with my family. I was walking at the edge of the water and saw a rope floating along with one end above the surface, the way a snake holds its head up when it swims. "That's interesting," I thought, and looked closer, and saw that the rope was attached to a little white canoe that was cruising along just under the surface of the water. That was even more interesting, so I took hold of the rope and started pulling myself out to sea, hand over hand, to see if I could see where it was going.

As I went along there were so many beautiful things to look at – sparkling underwater cities, and trees along the bank (it was more like a river now), and people doing interesting things, and flowers and animals ... I was sort of worrying, in the back of my mind, that I was getting kind of far away from the beach, and was not completely sure I knew how to get back. But then I noticed that I didn't even have to pull myself by climbing the rope anymore – all I had to do was hold on, and it would carry me along with no effort at all. Beautiful!

I was still anxious about how I would get back, but ended up being more curious than afraid and figured when it was time to go, I would figure out a way.

To cut to the chase, eventually I realized I was WAY out to sea, at which point I rose up several hundred feet above the water (still holding onto the rope) and looked back as far as I could see, all the way to the curve of the earth, realizing finally that I'd gone so far I could no longer see anything of what I'd left behind. I was lost.

Well! I set myself down on the riverbank (with a motion not unlike that hawk I saw tonight, come to think of it) and sat on a log to think as the sun went down. How was I going to get back? Was there a way to call someone, or at least let my family know where I was? I wasn't exactly afraid, because I knew I was in a beautiful, safe place and I knew everything would work out some way ... I just didn't have any idea how. And the idea of backtracking all that distance was pretty daunting. If it had been that easy to just float away, wouldn't it be all that much harder to pull myself back?

As I sat there mulling it all over, suddenly I heard footsteps crunching on the pebbled beach behind me, and a voice asking, "Hey, are you coming back in soon?"

It was my brother! And when I turned around to look, happy and relieved and wondering how he'd ever managed to find me, I saw the familiar grassy dunes and the long wooden steps and the little shingled house in the distance with warm yellow lights coming on for dinner, and I realized I'd actually swum and flown all the way around the world and landed right back on the very same beach I'd started on.

I woke up with a happy heart, thinking, "Wow – I can't wait to tell them everything I've seen!"

Re-raveling

The only dream I remember from this morning: I'm knitting a large pink and white square of soft, fuzzy, cottony velour yarn. Suddenly I realize I've made a mistake a few rows back, and all the yarn has slipped off the needles. I'm trying to get the stitches back on, and the more I fuss with it, the longer the slipped stitch unravels. I pause, thinking, "I oughtta just tear the whole thing out and start over." But it's a nice, big square, and most of it is fine. It's just the part right at the top that's a mess. Suddenly, my teacher appears next to me. "It's okay if you want to go back," she says.

"But won't I learn more if I stick with it, and figure out how to fix the mistake? Wouldn't that make me a better knitter?"

"Either way," she says. "Just keep knitting."

Sigh. My dream life has always had something of a flair for the obvious. Today it's commenting on the fact that once again, finding myself in the limp, clammy grip of my usual mid-winter ennui (nevermind that winter is now officially over), I've been fantasizing (a lot) about just ditching everything and taking off to start a new life somewhere else, in some new, clean, bright-white space that has nothing in it from my past or present life. Just last night, talking on the phone with an old friend and wandering around the yard in the final glimmerings of a less than spectacular sunset, I felt myself getting all clenched up inside over the various assorted piles of broken-down cardboard boxes and other items Mr. A is saving for some unknown (to me) garden-related project ... and yearned for a clear, empty expanse of wild, unmowed grass and unpruned trees. Fresh wind. Silence.

Maybe I need to go backpacking for a few days. Or even just spend an afternoon at the beach.

I had spent a half hour or so at the creek earlier in the evening, sitting on the rocks next to the waterfall and trying to empty my head. The willows are leafing out now and there's a thin green wash of color over everything back there. I was just entering my zone when the thumping, howling and screaming began ... I always know spring has arrived when my heavy-metal speedcore neighbors start rehearsing with the garage door open again.

Anyway! Dreams of escape are comforting for a few minutes, but the reality is (and I know I'm not the first to discover this), there IS no escape, except effort and acceptance. Like the lady in the dream said – stay and do the work here, or go somewhere else and do it there. Either way, the task is the same: to create something I feel good about. In this case, a life.

Another thing I saw last night, in my wanderings around the property: that old deer skull Tater found in the creek, lying on the ground next to the neighbor's wire fence. It's bleached white now and the grass has grown up around it so that it's deeply cushioned and protected there, like a jewel on a velvety green fur pillow. If I get the new camera before summer hits and the grass turns brown, I will take a picture of it for you.

Baby's back

I dreamed about a lost baby all night last night. First she was a little brown and white puppy I found on the beach. She was wearing all kinds of beautiful collars and tags around her neck, but I couldn't read any of them – didn't quite want to read them, because that would mean I'd have to give her back to her people, and I wanted to keep her. I worried that Tater would be jealous and I held her up for him to smell, so I could quickly pull her away if he tried to snap at her. Then she was a baby person, five months old. I didn't know where she came from and didn't have anything to feed her. "Try some blueberry yogurt," I said, holding the spoon to her lips. "It's full of antioxidants!" She didn't want yogurt, though, or anything else. Finally it occurred to me that at her age, probably all she really wanted to do was nurse. But who was going to nurse her? I felt desperate to figure it out, so I could keep her. I woke up crying.

As I stood under a hot shower, slowly waking up, I realized it was Anna Nicole Smith's baby I was dreaming about. I hope somebody is holding her and loving her and protecting her from all this heavyosity. I hope she grows up happy and safe and grounded and real, and that she has a wonderful life. I guess I hope that for everyone.

I used to have those dreams about finding a baby all the time in my early 20s – probably once or twice a month. Sometimes it was my own baby, sometimes I just found it somewhere, but in all cases my main concern was always how to get rid of it, by getting it to a place where it would be taken care of by anyone but me. The primary emotion of those dreams was anxiety and panic – I'm not capable of taking care of a baby! It's beautiful, but it isn't mine, and I can't do this! I don't want to do this. But I don't want anything bad to happen to the baby, either.

By my late 20s the lost baby dream had gone away and I started having a recurring dream about missing a plane, being stranded in a city far away from home and not being able to get back. That one lasted from about 1992 through ... well, early last year. Over the years, the dream changed until I had made peace with not knowing where I was or how to get back to familiar ground, and the panic of being lost was replaced by curiosity: what is this place like?

And now the baby's back. It's the first time I've had this dream in almost 20 years, and it's changed now, too – this time, I knew I could take care of the baby, and I wanted to. I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out, but the fear this time was not of keeping the baby, but of losing her.

It's always been clear to me that these baby dreams aren't really about babies – they're about my creative life and my fear of not being good enough to put my work out there and really try to DO something. So it's pretty exciting to have this particular dream right now, at a time when I'm tentatively starting to ramp up a bit and actually work again after so many years of not – I'm taking it as a sign that I really am stronger and braver now, and that I really can do this. Though I'm still in the process of getting clear on what "this" is going to be.

I've been consumed with art and design lately, drawing and doodling and making little things here and there – it feels like how you practice scales on the piano before you start to play for real. Yesterday, feeling excited and inspired, I went to the websites of a couple of art schools around here and promptly descended into a deep pit of anxiety about how I could never go to art school, never even get IN to art school, and most importantly, never pay for art school – this was the biggest obstacle in my mind, after looking at the tuition and fee schedules. My entire annual salary would barely cover a year of tuition at the main school I'd love to go to.

It was so distressing to feel so excited, and then so crushed, all within just a few minutes! I find it's still very hard for me to be with those feelings when they come up – I desperately want to get away from them by any means necessary, be it food, television, shopping, conversation, whatever. But I hung out there until I calmed down, and then took myself over to the website for the local junior college, which also has an art department, and which costs only twenty bucks per credit (instead of $1200), and which may be a good place to take a few baby steps toward learning some of the skills I'm interested in picking up.

Thinking again about Anna Nicole Smith, I'm thinking about those words, "I'm sorry," and trying to think what I would feel comfortable saying instead, when somebody dies. The only thing that comes to mind is "I'm grateful." Grateful for that person's life, grateful for all our lives, for being here together, for being able to feel, for being able to love, for remembering, for forgetting. That's what I really feel, and it's basically the opposite of feeling sorry. But I think people wouldn't know how to respond if I actually said that.

I guess the way I see it is that our being here at all is such a tiny blip in the eternity of time when we're not here, that when someone dies the main thing I feel is just a very strong sense of awe at the mystery of it all, and gratitude for having been here to know them. Sad to miss them, sometimes even devastated. But happy to have known someone I loved enough to miss.

On May 10 it will have been 25 years since my best friend from high school was killed in a car crash. That was my first experience of the death of someone I loved. Right now three people I know are dying, and the Jeeps's decline seems to be accelerating as well. Also, the trees are starting to blossom, new little lambs are frolicking in every field (complete with long, joyfully wagging tails), there's more and more daylight every day, and we're finally getting some serious rain around here, which always livens things up. I feel a little bit preoccupied with death and dying, and at the same time, happy and excited about life and living, learning, building, creating – all of it.

I like the way it feels to hold all of this in my heart, all at the same time. I feel like I'm really here.

P.S. I practiced slowing down last night by watching four chocolate chip cookies baking through the glass window in the door of the toaster oven. It took 17.5 minutes for them to turn from white to brown, and at such a slow pace, every tiny bubble of butter sizzling, every chunk of chocolate melting from matte to glossy, the first tendrils of aroma curling out through the steam vent ... every little change feels miraculous and worthy of celebration.