Tag: change

Another Changing Dream

Found myself wealthy with dreams last night. This was my favorite.

I’d left the military and I’d change clothes, twice. We were in a busy olace, an amalgam of city, countryside, stores, restaurants, and airport. It changed with where I ooked. That seemed right.

Now I was running late. Friends (K and W) and wife (B) accompanied me, and waited. I told them, “I need to take care of some of my change. There’s so much, I want to deal with some now.”

They mildly complained but I laughed them off and went to my car. Hard-edged and shiny, it was bright lime green wedge, exotic, expensive, and new. Yet my things were in it.

Young, energized, feeling liberated, I opened a panel up, revealing a long, light gray tray. Normally hidden from view, it went half the car’s length. Phones, electronic gear, clothing, paper money, and silver coins were in this tray. I couldn’t reach them because it’d all slid to the back, facts pointed out (with a laugh) by K, W, and B.

I replied, “Watch.” Jiggling the car caused the stuff to shift forward, letting me grab it. “There’s so much change,” I said, laughing. The others asked me what was funny but I didn’t explain. I put handfuls of change in my pocket to use, and then took some clothes to put on, and took a blender and a phone and put them into other parts of the car.

Traffic was heavy. We needed to go. After putting sunglasses on, we took off. The trip was short and fast. I swear that lime green car was flying.

After parking it and exiting, a dream about shopping began

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An Old Post – Out with the Old

Visiting my Red Room archive, where I posted for a while, and read one of my final post. It’s from June, 2014, but it remains valid. As soon as the pandemic lockdown began, my wife began cleaning. The thinking remains the same…

Here’s the post.

My wife has been on a continuing project.  Starting in March, she selected a room and cleaned it.  Emptied the closets.  Drawers.  Each item and article was examined.  Subjected to investigation.  Do we need it, do we use it?  Bag after bag was filled.  Trips to the Salvation Army and Goodwill were executed. I helped a little but she made it a project, creating lists, planning and executing foot by foot.

We’re down to two spaces she wants to clean:  the garage and my office.

My office.  My sanctuary, my Fortress of Solitude plus one and two cats. See, although it’s my office, that’s just a title.  She has begun calling it the snug.  It’s the warmest room in the house in the winter.  Heat attracts her.  It also has the best wifi connectivity and excellent natural light.  She urged me to buy a larger television for my office, then a recliner….  Despite being an experienced husband, I fell for both. She makes the recliner her home for reading, surfing the net, watching television and talking on the telephone.

Most stuff in the office is mine.  Much is writing or work related.  Clearing her throat in early June, she cautiously suggested we clean the office and get rid of some ‘accumulated junk’.  “Junk!” my heart cried.  She was calling my heritage junk.  Oh, the wound.

“You said you wanted to clean the garage,” I countered.  I’d been waiting for this strike.  “You can start there.  After all, most of the boxes in there are full of things you’re storing.”  Aha, take that!  En guarde!

The negotiations entered a tricky phase.  “I will admit that most things we store in the garage are mine,” she said, tiptoeing through words and tone, “and we should go through those boxes but I’m not ready to do it yet.”

A chink in her logic.  Riposte.  “I understand what you mean,” I replied.  “I’m not ready to go through my office…yet.”

Negotiations were at an impasse.  Weeks passed.  She returned with a counter offer.  “How about we each take out five things from the office?”

“Okay,” I answered.  “And two from the garage.”

She grimaced.  “If we get rid of things, we make room for new things.”

“Assuming that we want new things.  What if I’m happy with the things I’ve already acquired?  Besides, if that’s the case, there’s more junk in the garage.  If we want to make room for more things, shouldn’t we then start with the garage, where more things currently reside?”

My wife launched a rant about the junk we’ve accumulated.  I let her rant until she’d spat it all out.  Silence fell.  She sank her shoulders.  “Okay.  How about five from the office and two from the garage?”

“Okay.”

That’s where it was left, five days ago.  I’m no fool.  She’s not forgotten.

Tick, tock.

 

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The Einstein Dream

Dreamed last night the people were calling me Einstein. This was done to mock me. That pissed me off.

I’d arrived at a large building. Laid out with several floors and many rooms, clutter made moving difficult, and people milling about worsened it.

Walking about, the mess irritated me. Without talking to anyone, I began deciding where things should go and moved stuff around. Noticing, others began picking things up and asking me where to put it.

Soon, everyone was helping. I directed that others create lists of where things went, and put those on the walls. Then I had similar lists made up that told each room’s contents.

Momentum created, things were running themselves when two men approached. The taller of the two said to the other, “This is the Einstein that changed everything, so ask him if you have any questions.”

His snide tone stirred WTF in me. “I’m not Einstein, I’m not smart, I just organized things.”

But the guy kept talking, calling me Einstein.

Miffed, I ignored him and continued with what I was doing. My wife and her niece arrived. I decided to declare some space as ours, and eventually came up with a large suite of empty rooms. After hustling people out and closing the doors, the three of us walked around. As I did, I warmed to the realization that I had ended up with a huge and desirable space with lots of windows and incredible views. I pointed that out to the others.

Agreeing, they shared my excitement, which is where the dream ended.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame Paul Krugman for today’s song.

I was reading his post about zombies. You’d conclude, then, that today’s music features music by or about zombies.

Nope.

Krugman addressed Republicans et al who won’t or can’t change their thinking about unemployment compensation, the social safety net, and the economy despite decades of validated data that the Republicans are wrong. I then widened my scope of thought to include civil rights and equality. Voting rights. Police force and violence. Eventually my aperture narrowed to change.

Raise your hand if you’re convinced change is easy. For most, it isn’t. Change messes with psychology and comfort zones, habits and vices, and the way it’s always been versus the way we’d like it to be. Trump and his followers are already demonstrated that they’re mired in tar pits; they can’t and won’t change.

All this brought me to songs about trying to change. There are numerous musical releases about seasons and change. I went with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car”.

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Saturday’s Snippings

  1. John Muir and Margaret Sanger. These two are the latest to be addressed for their racism. In Sanger’s case, it’s more nuanced, regards eugenics, and is too much for my sprawled one-handed pecking for much detail here. I do recommend research. Muir, though, was an outright racist. We learn that people can be visionary and flawed. His damage to our society is deep. It’s sad and disheartening to learn these things. But they must be learned, and we need to be cognizant of the damage inflicted, and, yeah, make changes.
  2. Making changes like acknowledging past racism and its impact and then trying to fix it is just like the stages of grief, isn’t it? It’ll take a while to work through it. I can hear replies, how much longer must it take?
  3. Lovely to feel my arm healing. Strength is returning, range of movement is expanding, and the circle of pain is shrinking. Go back next week. The plan (if all is well) is to replace the splint with a short cast.
  4. Realizing that next week is August. July passed through with a sonic boom.
  5. I love the John Cheever quote I found this morning (posted elsewhere on the blog). It speaks strongly to my own writing drive. I always think, there’s more to our lives and reality than what we know. I’m agnostic about gods, and indeed enjoy tucking them into my tales, but I pursue the impression that we’ve only skimmed the surface of being. Writing helps me explore that essence.
  6. Drank a fantastic cup of coffee this morning. Right temp, flavor, and richness. A wow cup. Which made me immediately want to experience it again. Comparing it to drinking wine and beer, and eating food, and achieving things, I appreciated again the blend needed to brew something memorable that’s greater than its parts. Once, I’ve had it, I want more of the same. Not an epiphany, but a lesson learned one more time.
  7. Speaking of one more time, got a refresher cuppa coffee (yeah, it’s not the same, but it’ll do). Time to write like crazy…at least one. More. Time.
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Some Dream Highlights

Such a strange, long dream.

At one point, I let a little pet mouse out of the bathroom into the rain. Yellow walls and a naked yellow light, decrepit age, and a sloping dirt floor defined the bathroom. I didn’t want to let the little mouse out. I knew it was storming and night, unsafe conditions, to me. I didn’t know what the mouse knew. Letting him out with regret, I vowed to check on him.

Then, dreamshift, I was at work, a new job with a familiar feel. A new boss arrived. Others were at work at clusters of desks. I was shown a desk that was to be mine but decided to find and reclaim my previous place, which I then did. I cleaned it, finding old stuff of mine. Sorting it, I decided what to keep and toss. Then, speaking with a female co-worker, I re-oriented my desk to watch the front door. I told her that I wanted to see what was going on. She agreed that was the best way to face.

My mail was delivered. It was a lot but not as much as I expected. Off I went to find the rest. As I began, the office administrator arrived with a large bundle of mail for me.

Now, dreamshift again, I was leaving with my wife to return to our hotel. First, I went back to the yellow bathroom and pulled open the door. The little mouse hurried in from the rain with a grateful look my way.

My wife and I were walking through a large market on the way back to the hotel. Then she said, “I want to get something.” I asked her what. She replied but I couldn’t hear her. She went off, leaving me to mill around.

Friends in the military came by, heading to the marshalling area to deploy. I was happy to see them. Walking with them, I told them about changes in the area because they weren’t aware. Breaking off as they arrived at their destination, I joined up with my wife. She was still shopping. Like before, I asked her what she was after. She replied but I couldn’t hear her. She went off, leaving me with a commiserating shop owner. I decided to continue to the hotel instead of waiting.

Dream end.

 

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The Energy Dream

Antsy and restless, my wife and I awaited an event. 

We were seated in chairs outdoors, on a corner, by a dark sea. She was across from me. A sharp, blustery wind and leaden sky frequently pierced by sunshine highlighted a roiling, uneven intensity.

The mood I felt permeated a growing crowd. Roving gangs and knots of teenagers prowled, seeking outlets and distractions. I frequently looked to the horizon, waiting for the change that we feared and expected. A young woman who I vaguely knew came and sat on my lap. First she tried cajoling me into buying her a car. My wife, opposite, made snarky comments about the girl to friends. The girl annoyed me. She then tried seducing me, pushing my annoyance to the point that I removed her, and got up to walk.

The girl followed me, making comments. I decided it would be important for us to have water for what was to come and went to find some. My search brought me to a welcome center. Made mostly of clean bright white plastic, a lone, awkward appearing manned the place.

He spoke to me but I mostly ignored him. Multiple water dispensers existed but there weren’t any containers. I found a tin thing which I repurposed, then filled it. I tasted the water; it was fine. Looking at it, I discovered fine black sediment suspended in it. Pouring that water out, I cleaned the vessel, refilled it, and hurried back to the corner.

The event seemed to be beginning. We all gathered, standing to watch the ocean. A tall dark storm lit by silvery white backlight sprawled across the horizon. As a general said, “Here it comes. It’s bigger than expected,” a stern wind struck.

Although the wind rocked me back, his comments soothed me. I was happy that it was finally beginning. The general said, “It’s going to take longer to come because it’s bigger than expected.”

I was nodding because I was okay with that. Now that it was beginning, everyone relaxed and watched. Drinking crystal clear water from my tin, I waited.

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Friday’s Theme Music

A cool mountain wind came by late yesterday, serving to dispatch summer’s edgy warmth.

Such a welcome combo. I was relaxing after another wall-painting session. I wanted to take a walk but was ambivalent, mostly because it was about eight PM.

(‘Take a walk’ is an interesting expression. When I hear/write/read that line, I often imagine people with numbers waiting in line. You know, take a number, take your place, take a seat, take a walk. Just word associations.)

Decided not to go walking, but as I was thinking and enjoying the mild, cool wind and watching the change from day (distant apricot sunset in the west, indigo sky rising at the zenith, the moon, clear and shiny, riding the southern sky), a Scorpions song came to mind.

“Wind of Change” (1991) is such a mellow song, it definitely answered the moment.

The wind of change
Blows straight into the face of time
Like a stormwind that will ring the freedom bell
For peace of mind

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Listen.

 

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Monday – Three Things

  1. $.49. That was our electric bill for last month (May, 2020, for the calendar impaired): forty-nine cents. To break it down, we used $14.99 worth of electricity, and we were paid $14.50 for our solar panel energy. The rest of the bill wasn’t as good. Twenty-six and change for water. We had a wet June this year, so our water use was about half of what it was for the same time last year, even though we planted a garden this year and skipped it last year. Our utilities (gas is on separate bill), then, were about twenty-seven dollars. The one hundred dollar monthly bill’s remainder, about seventy-two dollars, were taxes and fees. Yeah, it’s a regular rant; I can’t save much on my monthly city bill because most of it is taxes and fees.
  2. WordPress Editor. I’ve returned to the ‘classic’ WP editor. Didn’t like the new stuff. Found it intrusive, counter-intuitive, and irritating. It was a change I didn’t want. And that’s okay, as I went back to the old way. No one’s rights or safety was threatened by my move back to how it was.
  3. I can’t keep up. My muses tell me the story too fast for my mind, and waaayyy too fast for my fingers. They don’t tell it in order and they’re always filling in the gaps. I get excited by what they’re telling me and their implications, and jump up to pace off my excitement. It’s a fun road that I follow, that struggle to write.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Monday’s Theme Music

I wonder how many remember this song.

I wonder why my brain is feeding it to me.

I know this song because Mom liked it, played it, and sang it. A country song, its cover by Jeannie C. Riley became a cross-over hit in 1968. The song later became the basis for a movie and a television show.

Why is it in my head today? My best guess is that my brain is playing head games with me. But the song is about the establishment (you know them), change, hypocrisy, rebellion, and judgement, (along with small town life) so that fits the here and now of our times, no? Sure, we can stretch.

Here’s Jeannie C. Riley with “Harper Valley PTA”.

I want to tell you all the story
‘Bout a Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter
Who attended Harper Valley Junior High

Well, her daughter came home one afternoon
And didn’t even stop to play
And she said, “Mom, I got a note here
From the Harper Valley PTA”

Well, the note says, “Mrs. Johnson
You’re wearing your dresses way too high
It’s reported you’ve been drinkin’
And a runnin’ ’round with men and goin’ wild”

“And we don’t believe you ought to be
A bringin’ up your little girl this way”
And it was signed by the secretary
Harper Valley PTA

h/t to SongLyrics.com

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