The Mt Tam Dream

Mount Tam, full name, Mount Tamalpais, is part of the Marin Hills. Twenty-six hundred feet high, it won’t awe with its rise about the land the way that Mounts Hood and Shasta do, or McLaughlin. I knew abut it from living in the SF Bay area and Peninsula for fourteen years. We’d read about it, and visited twice, maybe three times, during our local explorations.

Didn’t stop me from dreaming about it. First came name confusion. I was being told to go to Mt. Tam. Mt. Tam? Yes, Mt. Tam. We exercised some Laurel & Hardy exchanges about what was being said. I’d quickly reached the point where I understood that I was being told to go to Mt. Tam. My point, which I struggled to convey with little humor, was, why do I need to go to Mt. Tam? But they — the unseen folks I was speaking to, but who sounded and seemed male — were fixated on ensuring that I understood the place’s name without clarifying why going there was important. The back and forth eventually felt as painful as a bad tooth.

They gradually led me to believe there is something in Mt. Tam, the something never being explained, continuing my stretch of exasperation. I’m supposed to go to Mt. Tam to get something that’s there that I’ll know what it is when I get there. Seems significantly vague.

Then, going over the dream, I wonder, was Mt. Tam a literal destination being directed to me from my dream masters or a metaphor for matters churning through my subconscious? Bonus discussion points, for me, anyway: how much of this dream was influenced by The Overstory, as I’m currently reading that. For that matter, how much is generated from wrestling with the novel in progress?

June 30, 2021 0

June 29, 2021 0

June 28, 2021 2

Monday’s Theme Music

The annual rewind has begun. Not what’s happening, of course. More about revolutions and rotations. The essence, though, is that our daylight hours are beginning their seasonal wane.

Today is Monday, June 28, 2021. Sol’s golden beating began at 5:36 AM, a minute later than yesterday. By 7:45, the thermometer was climbing past 86 degrees F. We expected 110 in our southern Oregon valley today. We’ll get some relief tonight, after the sun moves on at 8:51 PM. The temperatures are expected to drop to 66 then.

I was in a work groove yesterday. Finished wall number three. On to number four this week, completing the great room saga, I mean, painting. Then it’ll be…other rooms.

While painting, I was writing in my head, going through plot lines and character arcs, imagining new scenes, re-thinking old ones, working my way toward a better ending. With this going on — writing in my head and painting the great room (and dealing with the heat) (yeah, okay, I turned on the A/C) — a song from 1970 entered the mental musical rotation stream. By King George, the song is called “Groove Me”. It’s a nice taste of R&B. I enjoyed the backstory of how this song came to be. King George worked in a factory a few feet from a young woman. They saw each other every day, but he was too shy to say anything. He finally wrote this song as a poem to give her. But he never saw her again.

Stay positive, test neggy, wear a mask when needed, and get the vax. Thanks. Here’s the music.