A Long Melancholy Dream

AKA, the Four Cars Dream

It could have been known as the Big House Dream, as well. Although I was about forty years old at the dream’s beginning, I was twenty at the end.

It began with a search for car keys.

I was looking for the keys for a car I owned when I was twenty, a signal orange Porsche 914. The drawer where I kept the keys was shallow and white. Another set of keys, for my RX-7, was in there, but where were the Porsche keys?

I began going through the house looking. The house was huge, rambling, and one story, with many low stone arches. Every room was empty except for that first one, which had a desk. This was my house; I’d newly acquired it.

Unable to find the keys, I ambled around the house until I stopped in one long and wide, all-white room. One piece of white furniture, a sort of stand turned upside down, was in it. Finding a can of black paint, I painted the stand. Finding other cans, I spray-painted the walls purple. As I finished up, a large, rotund, bald man with huge, muscular arms came in.

“There you are,” he said. “I need you to come with me.” He looked around at the painted room. “Nice job.”

I knew he was my minder and followed him. I was thirty by now. My minder told me that there was someone to see me. My minder showed me to the door.

Walking up a residential street, I encountered my old friend, Jeff. I haven’t seen or heard from him in RL in almost forty years. Jeff told me he had exciting news. He’d inherited a classic Porsche 911 from a friend. The guy had completely rebuilt it, and the car was pristine. Truly impressed, I congratulated Jeff. Jeff then said that he had a car for me and gave me the keys to a BMW. He said that he didn’t need it and he wanted me to have it.

I was flattered. I tried to turn it down. Jeff insisted. I accepted the keys to the car. The car wasn’t around. Jeff was going to have it shipped to me.

We parted. He went back up a hill, and I returned to my house.

I was now in my mid-twenties, wearing a brown leather jacket which I remember owning from RL. My minder was there, along with a girl who I knew to be sixteen. Her dark brown hair, like the color of oak, was long and shiny, framing a petite oval face. She smiled often, shyly. She wore jeans and a white button-down men’s shirt. She never said her name that I heard.

The minder left us. We chatted, with her peppering me with questions. Hearing a noise, I went out through one of the larger stone arches. It was late dusk, and the light was low. This arch opened to a path that entered the woods. I thought I heard and saw people down the path. It was my property, so I was concerned about what they were doing. As I walked, I picked up several flat stones to throw, if needed, as protection.

The girl had stayed back. After I returned, she questioned me about what was going on. I told her about the people and stood ready with the rocks. Young people came down the path, but they turned away from my house and property and kept going. Not needing my rocks, I set them down. With the BMW keys in hand from Jeff, I returned to the search for my Porsche car keys. This time I found them in the drawer where I’d first search. There was nothing else in the drawer. I thought that they must not have been there before, and someone must have placed them there after I’d searched.

I was now twenty. The minder returned. He said that Jeff wanted to see me. I went to the front door. Appearing very old, sad, and tired, Jeff told me that he’d decided to give me the Porsche which he inherited. I tried talking him out of it. He told me that he drove the car and saw himself in it, and that he looked ridiculous. The car didn’t fit him, but he believed it would suit me. Handing me the keys, he left.

I went outside of my house and sat against one of its stone walls. The girl came out and asked what was wrong. I told her that I was thinking about my friends and how I missed them. She noticed the keys and inquired after them. I told them that they were to four cars which I owned, and then described them. I could see each one. My Porsche was an orange 1974 model; the BMW was also a 1974 model. The green 911 Jeff gave me was a 1971 model year, and the blue Mazda was a 1981, which I had bought. She was most impressed when I mentioned the BMW, calling it a Bimmer. She said she really liked them. I answered, “No, you don’t understand, this is a vintage car from the 1970s, a white 2002. You’ve probably never seen one. They stopped making them before you were born.” I remembered then that I’d owned a BMW 2002 in RL and became confused: was I dreaming or remembering?

More dream followed about taking a trip with other people, but this is where I’ll stop.

May 11, 2022 0

April 25, 2022 2

April 16, 2022 0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

If you heard a thud earlier today, that was probably Wednesday landing.

Today is March 9, 2022. It’s chilly here, winter-spring, or wing. Blossoms have shown up on trees. Star asters and lilies are shoving their colorful heads out of the ground. Temperature now is 45 F and we expect 52, with some showers possible. The clouds look like they’re not sure about their orders, like, yeah, maybe they’ll come together for some rain, or maybe they’ll just call it off and drift home to Cloud City. (That’s where almost 99% of the clouds live, you know. Have you ever been?)

The sun checked in at 6:33 this morning. Check-out time is 6:10 PM.

The line, “And I’m getting old,” popped into my head last night, just an offshoot of general reflecting upon life, death, and existence, and the world’s current state. That’s a line out of a 1972 song called, “Heart of Gold” by Neil Young, according to the neurons. The line kindled the song and so it remained, looping through the morning mental music stream as I made and consumed breakfast, awaited word about Papi, and read updates about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I love this acoustic version’s sense of introspection and loneliness.

So here we are. Stay positive. It’s a fight, I know. We’re all getting old, aren’t we, although many of us don’t think of ourselves as getting old until some magic point is reached. That magic is a different moment for each, superficially the same, one that can be categorized as a happening, like getting forgetful, or feeling weary, but it’s different for you than from me. I think.

Test negative. Wear a mask if it’s needed and get the vaccine and booster when you can. I’m back to the kitchen for a warmer. Have a better one. Cheers

March 9, 2022 1

January 21, 2022 2

November 5, 2021 0

September 12, 2021 0

Betrayal

Had happened before. Wouldn’t bet against it again. Always without a hint. Always from unexpected direction.

This time, it was below. A knee went off on an excursion. He was walking up steps. Not hurrying. Nothing special. But that knee took a detour to the right. An action that almost threw him back down the stairs. Made him grab the handrail and gasp. Pause to breath. Swallow pain. Yeah, and fear.

Others saw. “You okay?”

He nodded. Not sure what they saw. “Just.” Didn’t know how to explain it. Didn’t want to. “Caught my toe. Tripped myself.”

They were looking. Mute. Knew what had happened. Understood why he lied. Nodded. Accepting.

Continued on.

He followed. Betrayed by his body again. Worried that another betrayal was imminent. Maybe not a knee. Maybe memory. Or cognitive process. Damn body. No long trustworthy.

August 19, 2021 2

Where’s The Year Gone?

A fellow blogger and I have wondered, where’s the year gone? I know, that’s not an unusual question in any year. Where’s the time gone, in general, is a diabolical puzzle. Just yesterday, I was twenty-two, something like that. I could eat what I wanted, now I wanted. Snorted doughnuts for mid-morning snacks. Partied until two AM, then went to work at seven. Ate three cheeseburgers at a sitting. Now I’m on Medicare.

A note on the Medicare. I wouldn’t have joined if not forced into it. I retired from the military. Had Tricare. Can’t elaborate on which Tricare. There are two thousand known variations of Tricare. Others are constantly being found by health professionals in computer systems. To stay on Tricare, once I ‘turned’* 65, as I did at the beginning of July, I had to join Medicare Parts A & B. Where I was paying nothing except co-pay a year ago, I was required to start paying $25 a month for my Tricare. Now I’m required to pay about $117 a month for Medicare Part B (A is free) to keep my Tricare. It’s a different form of Tricare, though. I’ll figure it out later.

Part of the year was spent on determining which Medicare parts I required. That included timing. You can’t just join Medicare at any time, you know. You have windows. You miss your window, you wait for the next window. For me, though, missing the window meant that I’d also lose my Tricare. That covers my wife, too. It’s becoming more necessary as we’ve moved toward being the oldest people on the planet. Other parts of the year were spent on questions about masking, COVID-19 vaccinations, variants, and shopping hours. But those were side ventures. Most of my time was spent wondering what I was going to eat.

In additional to a pantry and a refrigerator/freezer combo, we have a small garden. Tomatoes, squash, green peppers, kale, lettuce. It’s been a hard gardening year. Drought, you know. Hot sun, too. We covered plants up. They still weren’t happy with the heat, suggesting, let’s move to somewhere cooler, like hell.

We also have a chest freezer and additional food supplies in the guest room closet. It seems like I’m always wondering, what do we have to eat? What can I eat now? I can bore you to death with all the food we have on hand. I’m always thinking about more. It’s a joint decision that’s made. My wife and I have to agree on what to eat. That usually involves a discussion of what food is on hand. Then, if we don’t immediately have the answer (“Do we have any brown rice left?” “Go fish.”), one of us must leave our chairs and books or computers, go to the supply sources and determine if we have the needed ingredient.

After we decide, okay, we can make this, we discuss who will make what. “I made dinner last night.” “We had pizza. You got it from the pizza place.” “Still counts.”

A large part of the forces driving our discussion and my angst is that we just can’t go out and get what we want. One, restaurants have reduced hours or shut down. Two, which store will have what we need? How much do we trust them and their clientele to be COVID-19 safe? Is getting Ben & Jerry Ice Cream really worth the risk.

Yes, I say, masking up, and driving there.

What we want isn’t always in stores. If this pandemic has shown nothing else to me, it’s shown how completely dependent I am on our systems to provide me with food to buy. Whether it’s organic or processed, cooked in a restaurant or baked in a bakery, I want others doing it for me. This embarrasses part of me. That part says that I should be more self-reliant. More independent. I can fix computers but I can’t hunt meat. Or won’t.

The other part of me says shut up if you want me to go out and get a snack. Which I might do. Thinking about food has made me hungry, and there’s still a little bit of July to kill.

Where’s my mask?

*That expression of ‘turning’ an age always embellishes my brain with an image of me on a baking tray and someone using a giant spatula to flip me over.