I’m currently contemplating making arrangements for my wife and I to go the the Oregon coast for a break. You know the thinking: get away from it all. Take well-deserved time out from the usual routines. My injuries and medical matters curtailed many of our travel plans this year. Beyond that, the burden of caring for me, cleaning the house, and well, doin’ everything, was shoved onto her shoulders for several weeks. She held up well but she could use some downtime.
The thing is, it’s winter. Snow could come at any time. And we’d be driving through the mountains, often on winding two-lane highways. She no like. As a naturally anxious person, travel heightens her anxiety. Blend in additional risks like driving on snowy, icy weather, and she’s hanging over the edge.
In that way, she’s my polar opposite. I’m a calm and relaxed traveler and driver for most of the time, taking things as they come. When driving, I do get impatient with other drivers and vehicles. I allowed the impatience to take over when I was middle-aged. Now, I gently coax it back into its shell.
So I’m up in the air about what to do. Stay or go. Probably plan it and make reservations, and then buy the cancellation insurance in case the weather is too daunting.
I was a young man. And I was at some kind of car race where I was to be a participant. Several emerging factors swirled and fell and rose. Nobody was expecting me. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I then confirmed, gosh, I am in this race.
Employing strange dream logic, the race was sometimes played as a card game with a board track. Other times, it seemed like a slot car setup, but then it was sometimes full-sized race cars. I’d seamlessly skip between those motifs but the dream itself was mostly centered on race control where I’d check the time sheets, find out where I was on the track, and learn my position. The people populating race control were all tall, older, and white. Most seemed British. I never saw any of the cars so I can’t comment on their colors or livery. But I would identify them. Like I told some once that another driver was piloting a Porsche 917 and another was driving a P3 Ferrari. Someone else was wheeling the Silk Cut Jaguar XJ9.
I swapped cars. I don’t know what I was driving but I suddenly announced, grinning, “I’m driving a Ford GT.” This is a car which won LeMans and the world championship in the mid 1960s and helped seduce me as a racing fan when I was nine. I didn’t specify which variant I was driving.
I learned that I’d qualified fourth but some bureaucratic snafu shuffled me to the pack’s tail end. That didn’t bother me; I shrugged it off with a grin. I was confident that I would win, as I’d qualified fourth with minimal effort. Now, recalling, I actually did have one segment where I was in the car, on the track, during the race, passing clusters of other cars. I then left the car, blink, and was back at race control to check my standing. They didn’t know who I was. I was certain I was leading but they dismissed it. I was told that I’d done something incorrectly and my laps hadn’t been counted. I didn’t know I was supposed to do that, I protested, but that wasn’t their issue.
None of that fazed me. Grinning, I told them, “But I have all these chits.” The chits were small red paper rectangles, like the old-time ticket stubs given at movies in decades past. I received them every time I completed a lap. As I told them about the chits, I held up a fistful of them. Expressing astonishment, they counted the chits and announced that I was in the lead.
I met the news with a happy grin and readied myself to keep racing. Dream end.
I enjoyed discovering this footage of the 1966 LeMans race featuring the Ford GTs. Nice to hear the voices of Bruce McLaren, Dan Gurney, Denis Hulme, etc., and see them. Of course, the staged Ford 1-2-3 finish was made famous in the movie Ford vs. Ferrari, where Ken Miles (played by Christian Bale) was first across the finish line but was deemed not to be the winner because another car started further back, so it covered more distance.
Being laid up seemed to lure flocks of dreams. An early one was about cars. I often dream of cars so this isn’t something overly remarkable.
The featured car was one from my life, a 1985 Mazda RX-7 GLE SE. We bought it new on returning to the US from Okinawa. My wife went along with the purchase even though a two-seat sports car isn’t practical and the insurance was hefty for a 29 year old driver. My wife didn’t drive it as she didn’t like driving manuals. Wasn’t comfortable. But we had fun in the car.
Dream me could have been lifted from a photo of the period. So there I am, driving the car. I pull up to a long, wide table. Blonde wood with a silver metal edge all around. I reach down along the long table. Almost magically — or maybe I just overlooked it — I have a black cord in my right hand. A small black connection is available. It’s like the monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I connect it to charge my car. Charging is done in nothing minus one second. I disconnect the cable and move back to my car. As I do, I hear a man speak. He asks, “Why is he taking my energy? He doesn’t need my energy. He has his own. And he can make more.”
I knew he was talking about me. Another began defending me.
I waved them off. “No, no, he’s right. I can generate my own energy. That’s what I’ll do.”
I was walking down street when a silver Hyundai Santa Fe pulled out of their drive and turned my way. As they came on, I realized that a can was resting on top of the car on the passenger side.
“Hey,” I called. Gesturing, I tried playing charades with the driver: something. Car. Roof. Meanwhile, I hollered at him, “There’s a can on your car’s roof.”
Beaming, he gave me a big, friendly wave.
“No, no,” I cried out. “There’s something on your car’s roof.”
Dreamed I came into a windfall of cash. The amount was never specified but I bought a new Porsche 718 spyder and paid cash.
Next, I purchased a Dior pewter gray suit. Though off the rack, it fit me perfectly. Oh, and this was a young thirtyish me. Along with the shirt, I bought new shirt, tie, and shoes. Wearing these things, I drove the car around. In one odd sign, however, I seemed larger than the car.
I stopped and exited the car to chat with some people I loosely knew. They admired my suit, guessing, “New?” Yes, I proudly answered. I realized I had the price tags attached. I fretted about my wife finding out how much I paid for the suit. I believed it was thousands but I couldn’t read the price tags. Each time I tried, something imposed to prevent that from happening.
I decided that I wanted to remove the price tags. I needed a knife or small snips. Looked for both, roaming around, but found neither. Did receive many more compliments about how the suit looked on me.
Getting back into the car to leave, I found that while the cockpit was as expected, the rest of the car was expanded to be an open-air bus filled with people. Didn’t surprise me. We were leaving a museum. I saw a woman who I wanted to intercept walking toward another vehicle exit. I decided I would circle around and chat with her.
“I just have one stop to make,” I told the rest. “Then we’ll be on our way and I’ll drop you off at your destination.”
I was driving down the road while making that announcement. Lovely day of blue sky, sunshine, and clouds. The roads were spacious and well-maintained, concrete with curbs, abutting parks, plazas, and museums. I circled right and went under an overpass and came back around to where I was.
That surprised me. I’d expected there to be a turn off that would take me over to the other road. I tried again — three more times in all — and met the same result. With the fourth time, my passengers said, “Oh, no, not again.
Asking for their indulgence, I gave it one more effort, but this time shifting over by one road which I’d noticed. That worked, taking me to where I wanted to be.
I parked in the coffee shop’s lot. A silver SUV battle scar from its travels had the front passenger door open. I glanced that way. It seemed like the SUV was someone’s home. A woman was in the seat, her foot sticking out the open door, as she painted her toenails pink.
I thought of multiple things associated with painting nails. To feel and look attractive. Or maybe to fit in. To seem normal to others. You know, norms, values, mores, judgements. Or carrying forward from the past, trying to remain that person they were.
Then again, I could be all wrong. Might be that they’re not living in their car. They could just be a traveler, pausing to get coffee, taking advantage of a break in their schedule to do their nails.
It’s the kind of scene that inspires questions and thinking about our life and society.
A long and greatly involved dream in three parts entertained me last night. It seemed like it was about hopes, expectations, and relationships.
Part 1: the Catholic family.
In this, Mom had to go away. Although I was an adult, she worried about where I was going to stay and what I was going to do, standard concerned Mom reactions to change. I ended up with an offer to stay with a childhood friend’s family. Neighbors. Haven’t seen the guy in almost fifty years, but here he was, in my dream, along with his parents. His parents have passed away some time ago, BTW.
In this dream, they had a huge home. I wouldn’t deem it luxurious but enormous with a byzantine layout. Some rooms were like huge cement auditoriums or gymnasiums; others were small but with multiple levels.
My friend’s mother told me, “Do whatever you want here. Just act like it’s your house. We’re happy to have you here.”
While I appreciated the sentiments, I was leery of making myself an unwanted guest, so I tried being circumspect. Weirdly I wore off-white pajamas with narrow blue pinstripes the entire time. I thanked her, of course. After casual exploring, I found a large room with a small student desk, the kind seen in elementary school, where I set up my computer and sat down to write.
After I set up, she came by with her family. Only she spoke, though, telling me, “We’re going out. We’re going to be gone a while, so the house is all yours.” It felt like a huge responsibility, almost a burden, but I thanked her for her trust and hospitality. They left; I kept writing.
At some point, I grew aware that it was pouring rain and the onset of dusk outside. I decided to leave.
Part 2: the Porsche rally and restaurant.
I went into my hosts’ garage and found a car. A small and older sports car of some kind, I knew it as mine.
I drove out into the rain and down a driveway to a busy, winding multi-laned urban street. Small sports cars were passing, dropping revs and downshifting, and sometimes sliding, drivers catching spins as the car’s back end swung out on the slick asphalt.
I recalled then, that’s right, the town was hosting a Porsche Rally, with special emphasis on older Porsches and the Porsche Spyder.
Well, that explained it! I also saw a circa 1970 Lotus Elan go by. I wondered if they’d allowed it to participate in the Porsche event, or if serendipity had brought it to this time and place.
Pulling out into the driving rain, I drove carefully, wishing I had a Porsche like the stylish little cars I saw. As I came up one hill, I needed to slow substantially because a Bugatti Veyron had spun across the middle of the road. I wondered, what is an expensive exotic like that doing here? I then saw three more going by in the rain.
Bugatti Veyron from the net — not my car.
It was almost dark and I reached my destination, a crowded old restaurant where I was meeting friends. The menu was American-Immigrant fusion. I began with pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, and then switched to chicken fried rice. We stood as we ate, and my food tasted sensational.
As I ate, a tall, thin man walked by. “Guess what,” he loudly said, “I saw jars of Ragu in the kitchen. You’ve been tricked! This sauce is not made here.”
My friends and I shrugged it off. Wherever the food was from, it was awesome.
Part 3: the Revolution
I piled into a car with four other men. One of them was driving. One was armed with a gun which was part of his head. I could see that it was loaded with one round bullet, like something you’d fire from a musket. I was pondering the intricacies of how you’d aim a gun like that, especially if the target is moving.
We parked and entered a small, dim theater. A small stage was set up on the far end in front of rows of padded metal folding chairs. About twenty people, mostly men, were present. All were early middle-aged or older, and all were white. I milled with a few people, chatting for several seconds, and then one man began talking. They were there to overthrow the government.
Well, hold on, I thought, uneasy. I’d been invited to this gathering, and it’s not what I thought it was going to be. Something about the way they were addressed struck me as a religious group. I eased myself to one side, thinking, how am I going to get out of here?
At that point, the man with the gun head fired. He pointed it somewhere else and not at me. I watched the round ball leave its barrel with a plume of white smoke.
Many people, including me, have experienced an anxiety dream, the kind of nocturnal event that seems to feed on the things bothering them and causes them to awaken in distress, thinking about ‘this horrible dream’. Well, last night’s dream felt like an antidote to such dreams.
It began weird, strange, and slow, with me being given clothes. The clothes were bizarre, especially the pants. White with wide legs and gold piping outlining their shape, they were made of some stiff leathery material. I was barely able to bend them. And they didn’t fit at all. Way too large.
Out on a rocky outcrop, I was supposedly doing other things but couldn’t because I put these pants on and said, “No way. There must be something else I can wear.” So I took them off and held them up, looking around for someone to talk to about my pants. Nobody seemed interested in what I was saying. I reached a point where I thought, you know what, I’m just going to toss these aside.
Someone came by and took the pants away. I was expecting them to provide me with a different pair. When none were forthcoming, I resigned myself to the jeans I wore. They fit fine and were in good shape, so I was okay with that.
Then, crack, I was suddenly lifted by a whirlwind. I’d barely began processing that when it delivered me to a piece of white machinery. It needed repaired, I saw, so, click, I had it apart. Then, click — with a blaze of yellow and red light, the machine roared to life, fixed.
I laughed with glee. Because I didn’t think I could fix it. But I did! And it wasn’t hard at all.
Fixing gave me confidence. I looked around; what else needed fixed? Bring it on.
Then I wondered about my injured foot. It has a ruptured tendon. Need to be careful, I reminded myself. Yes, because it gives out without warning, hurts like fire burning the bottom of my foot when it does, and I don’t want to make it worse before I see my doc.
A deep male said, “Don’t worry about your foot. Do what you want to do. Your foot is going to be fine. Don’t worry about it at all.”
That’s when I awoke, probably because Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) was singing for his breakfast. I rolled out of bed, energized by the dream still clinging to my thoughts. It left me feeling so optimistic. As I went around the bedroom doing things, an odor struck me. I almost froze, smelling, thinking, what is that? I know that smell. It’s familiar, but —
Another dream fragment returned to me. I’d been in a white convertible with a tan leather interior. I don’t know what brand it was, but it was a luxury car, and I was proud and excited about it. The car top was down. I’d just bought the car. Brand new, it had that new car smell.
And that’s what I’d smelled while walking around the bedroom.
Michael Seidel, writer 