I had that dream again last night...the recurring dream that inevitably ends the same.
The setting is always different, but the constant is that there are a lot of people to feed. I'm desperately scrounging around trying to find food to prepare and get the table set. Sometimes I'm washing up dishes or searching cupboards for dishes. Even though the background crowd is oblivious of me, I'm frantic over getting things organized in the church basement or the school lunch room or the stranger's house.
Last night's version was especially frustrating: a group of elderly relatives are assembled (all of whom are actually deceased) and it's dinner time at this unfamiliar house. I can't find enough food in the fridge to make a meal and I can't find any dishes in the cupboards. The obligation is weighing heavily on me and I don't know what to do, but I keep scrambling around.
We decide to go to a restaurant. The relatives all get in one car and leave while I get in another car with my granddaughter driving. Several anonymous people are in the backseat.
When we get to the intersection, the old folks turn left to go into town but my granddaughter goes straight ahead. I keep telling her she has to go back so she makes a u-turn in the middle of the road. But we are stopped short by a camel directly in front of the car. It won't move and a farmer tells us that the camel is just curious about us.
Finis.
It's the same every time. Not the camel, but my unfulfilled need to feed the people (or sometimes, clean up after them) is thwarted, leaving me feeling incompetent and frustrated.
This has been going on for years. Of course, I still occasionally have that nasty old school dream where you have a test you're unprepared for and can't find your locker etc.
What brings me down is that the dreams are so defeating. Why can't I have a fun dream sometimes? Why can't I have an enlightened or uplifting dream that empowers me?
And, what kind of putz am I if I can't even dream well?
2 comments:
Well, there you go. Look at that last sentence, very self-deprecating and very unkind to yourself. No wonder you are dreaming bad dreams. Your dreams are an extension of your meanness to yourself!
Do you have a lot of ingrates in your life? Have you carried too many burdens for others, been used, that sort of thing? Take a look at that, maybe the dream's recurrence indicates that you were repeatedly unfairly burdened and never even got a thanks. Just my gloomy interpretation.
Hmmm. It seems like a metaphor for a fear of the loss of sustenance -- that we are running out of the surplus that has been American life for the last number of decades.
But you know me. There has to be an even bigger dark cloud around the dark cloud.
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