Tag: storms

The Porthole Dream

My late mother-in-law dominated one of my dreams last night.

I was on her ship. To my knowledge, this woman never owned a boat, never mind a large ship.

While I’d been with her, visiting, I was preparing to leave. Outside the ship, I was aware that it was heavily storming. Large waves rocked the ship. Winds howled. Sheets of rain fell from black iron skies.

I needed to go, to catch my flight, to go home. But first, well, there was the matter of my laundry. Done washing, I needed to put them into the dryer. I couldn’t open the dryer, though.

Men came to help. I gathered through conversations that they were my mother-in-law’s brothers. Appreciating the assistance, I managed to get the wet clothing into the dryer. Now I needed to get myself ready. Needed to shower and shave.

I went into the bathroom. A porthole was open. Ocean water came nearly to the porthole, terrifying me. “This should be closed,” I said to myself. I felt that I couldn’t close it without permission.

Leaving the bathroom with a backward look at the porthole, I encountered my mother-in-law in the hallway. “I was thinking, Mike.” (She’d always called Mike, her and her husband, although I went by Michael with my wife and the world.) “There’s no reason for you to go to the airport to catch your flight. You can catch it here.”

Although some part of my brain in the dream protested, I’m sorry, but we’re on a ship, that’s not possible, I said, “Are you sure? Is that possible?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

“No bother at all. It’ll save you time.” She walked off, as was her habit, as she finished her comment.

“Great,” I answered, then went after her. “There’s a porthole open in my bathroom. I think it needs to be closed. The water is about to come in. We could get flooded.”

“Okay, go ahead and close it,” she replied.

Happily, I returned to the bathroom and closed the porthole. I felt much better about that.

“Your flight is almost here,” one of the brothers told me.

I wasn’t ready. “Okay,” I called back. After rushing through my shower and shaving, I dressed while hurrying out to empty my clothes from the dryer. They needed to be packed. I had my suitcase at hand. I was thinking that the flight was early. I was thinking, how can the aircraft land on ship? Was it going to land on the sea? I was thinking, how can it land in this weather? I was thinking, I want to pack my clothes neatly but I need to get them into the suitcase and get going. I was thinking, there’s so much to do, and I feel so rushed. I was thinking, maybe I shouldn’t go now.

Shirt not properly tucked in, wet hair uncombed, suitcase open, clothes half in it, I declared myself ready to go.

Dream end.

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The Hot Mess

Dreams wrecked my sleep like booming thunderstorms. While the dreams went all over the place, often with multiple storylines and settings, and frequently anxiety fraught, one theme stayed true: the leads were missing or broken. I kept hunting them or trying to repair them. In one example, others brought in a large and heavy broken motor. “Know what we found in this?” one man that helped deliver the heavy electric motor said. He was affable and burly, curly-haired and sunburned, a little dirty and greasy in his blue uniform with its red and white name tag with “Mike” in script, and a gap in his teeth.

I grinned. “Broken leads, right?”

Mike grinned back. “Yep. You got it. The leads weren’t working.”

Stepping back, I’d finished the first draft of April Showers 1921 a few days ago. I found it a hot mess. Good writing, yes, but shitty storytelling. The concept had over-excited me, and I’d peed all over the place. It’s my big friggin’ writin’ weakness. The first draft had become six hundred Word pages and one hundred fifty thousand words. The last quarter and ending were weak. The beginning and middle were confusing.

When something goes wrong, I try to figure out what to do. That’s been try for me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, the process requires me to walk away from the project. Grant my mind some space and let it work. This isn’t one of those projects, though. I felt an urgency to keep working on it.

The writing hadn’t been a waste of time, of course. One, it entertained me. Second, I learned more about the concept, and then the story. As I’ve quoted Terry Pratchett before, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

Now I knew the whole story, and it needed to be re-worked. Many hours of thinking and walking were conducted in search of what to do. Well, I roughly knew what to do: revise and edit. Sure, but I thought, more structure was needed than to proclaim revise and edit and go forth. I needed a better, more solid plan. I just wasn’t satisfied enough with this draft to begin considering revise and edit. I was thinking, write again.

I didn’t wanna write it again, I whined. I know, I answered. That’s writing.

Decisions were made. Each decision took me down a tangible plan. I began seeing how and why I’d concluded the ending and last quarter were weak. Glimpses of what to do began emerging.

Wasn’t easy to get there. The journey from proclaiming hot mess to saying, okay, this is what I’m going to do, took hours of thinking and plotting. It was intense. I was not a good person to be around. Fortunately, I was mostly on my own.

Then came the dreams.

The dreams were beneficial. They didn’t dictate, “DO THIS,” in a deep voice that might’ve been Jehovah or James Earl Jones. No, the dreams were more like a thundering rain storm with strong winds, blowing out the mess.

Now, it’s been accepted. The first hot mess was done; work is required. The path has been defined. Jaw is set. Coffee is at hand. I’m in position.

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

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A Dream Pastiche

To begin, car and truck exhaust mixes with light snow flurries in a hilly town. Slurry covers broken asphalt. Wooden utility poles leaning at crazy angles hold up sagging lines. Snow and ice weigh down the lines. A maroon Honda Prelude, rusty and missing a door, with a broken tail light and dented sides, is trying to navigate a turn through the slush and go up a small hill when the engine stumbles and dies in a cloud of blue smoke. People stumble out of the car to help push it up the hill and out of the road. I run over and help, putting hands on the cold, wet trunk lid, and push, slipping and sliding on the broken, icy asphalt road. We do it. A small cheer goes up.

I know the people in the car. I wish I could help them more but I have problems, and wave good-bye, rushing on to school. The classroom is packed. I’m in fifth grade. The teacher explains an assignment. The students will be divided into teams. Each team will be given an article. They’ll read it as individuals, discuss it in a group, and then write individual essays about the article. Then she singles me out to tell me that she has a special essay for me, and I will work alone. My reading assignment is denser and longer than the others. I feel isolated and confused.

Taking the article with me, I head to my work. Two concrete buildings make up a small compound. I live there with others. Most are young, but a few are older than me, but I’m in charge. A storm is coming, but we also worry about attack. I explain that we have to secure everything outside so it won’t blow away, but also so we’ll be safe inside. I put Randy in charge of the rest to do this. Randy is upset because he doesn’t think others are contributing. I have to talk it through with him. Meanwhile, he and his team are doing a terrific job of moving things to make us safe and boarding up the place. I just need to keep encouraging him.

I discover a problem with our plan. The main room has a big window that overlooks the sea. It’s calm but I worry about that window. The rest is all covered, but all someone would need to do is circle the building. They’d discover that window and smash it in.

Options are discussed, decisions are made. Some of which we’ve done must be undone. Showing me what must be undone, Randy shows what they’ve done. I’m impressed, but I also spot weaknesses and explain that to them. They begin the re-work.

Going to the second building, I discover an old man living in the cluttered, windowless back room. The room reminds me of part of an old gas station. The old man is a friend and has a cat. I help him lock the cat up, but the cat is trying hard to get back out. We discuss papers that need to be read and written. Then I make sure he’ll be okay for the coming storm.

Returning to the first building, I check on food and supplies. We’ve done everything that we can, but anxiety that we’re not ready nags me. I can’t think of what else we can do. Feeling helpless, I try to think up answers but I don’t know the questions and issues.

I’m left waiting.

2

The Pirates’ Thanksgiving Dream

To begin, it’s Thanksgiving. I’ve volunteered to feed the pirates a Thanksgiving meal.

Setting: a modern port city. I don’t know its name. The pirates are not a baseball or football team. They’re not a social organization. They’re pirates on sailing ships.

My offer to feed the pirates pleases them. I set about getting the ingredients. It all comes together. Strangely, though, I’ve put the meal in someplace that turns out to be a toilet, and the meal is gone when I automatically flush.

It’s freak out time. OMG, the food is gone. OMG, why’d I put it in the toilet? Why’d I flush? Well, did the flushing part matter? I mean, once it’s in the toilet….

Panic time. Find replacement food. I scurry about, reaching out and begging for help. Promises are exchanged but time is growing short. Thanksgiving is almost here, it’s almost time for the meal – but there’s also a storm coming.

People are fleeing the storm. The sky is darkening. Storm surge waves are growing larger and more powerful. I’m on a plaza by a hotel, and the waves are half of the hotel’s height.

But strangely, on that plaza, I’m in sunlight. I know the storm is coming. but the waves and wind don’t touch me. I’m less worried about the storm than I worry about feeding the pirates. I know my opportunity is slipping away. People have evacuated. Ships are sailing away. I’m not certain of the pirates’ location now, but I’m certain that I won’t be able to feed them a Thanksgiving meal, and I’m sad.

0

Dual Storms Dream

Howling winds hurled gray sheets of rain across the landscape. Thinking of the dream, I remember endless, gloomy gray. No lights were ever seen. The wind shrieked and howled. There were waves and waterspouts, and there was rain.

We’d been striving to prepare for the heavy, increasing storms, but their cycles sped up, and the storms were more sudden and violent. Many people and places were surprised by the storms’ viciousness and frequency. Others tried taking them in, because, what else could they do?

But a strange disease began sweeping the settlements. Virulent, contagious and deadly, symptoms appeared with little warning. The population quivered with anxiety. Civil cooperation vanished. An era of selfish fighting for survival erupted.

I came into the dream seeing others and racing from them, ensuring I avoided others because I didn’t want to die from the disease. I’d already lost friends and family. My desperation to avoid others drove me to leap off cliffs into crashing waves. Constantly on guard, continually traveling, hoarding food, I felt exhausted.

Then, during a relatively calmer, quiet period, one man called across to me. He was a hundred yards away. I didn’t want him to get closer. I believe he said, “They have a cure.”

Although dubious, I was interested. I didn’t know who they were. The storms lessened. During a period of trudging between buildings in search of food, I saw posters. The posters claimed there was a cure, and gave directions.

I was leery of a trap but made my way in a general manner toward the location of the cure. I saw others. We kept our distance from one another but called across, sharing information, trying to address, who can vet this, and how can it be vetted? More people closed in on the center where they supposedly had a cure. Suspicions kept me back.

The storms finally abated more. Weak sunshine washed the wet land. More people were encouraged to go for the cure.

And I, tired of solitary fight to survive, joined them.

0

Variation on a Dream

It came again as I slumbered, montages of being swept up in wild currents. They carry me through channels and cataracts. I tumble over falls. Through it all, I’m battling for direction, enduring difficult circumstances.

Yes, it’s the flood dream.

The flood dream is one of several recurring dreams in my dream folio. I don’t know when it first developed and presented but I do know it frequently returns. I’ve never been able to pinpoint its return on any cause. I’ve only spoken of it to others a few times. Mostly, it renders me thoughtful and meditative when I awaken from it.

In its first iterations, I was young and the dream begins with me exploring areas of Wilkinsburg and Penn Hills, PA, outside of Pittsburgh, where I lived about ten years in my youth. The dream was an accurate reproduction of landmarks, events and geography in its early years, more like memory than dream. Sometimes childhood friends were present.

After dreaming it a few times, the flooding began. Typically, I was in the woods, on a recognized steep hillside of dark loam. The skies darkened. I knew a storm was coming. As I hustled toward safety, monsoon rains begin. Storm sewers and creeks overflow. Water engulfs everything. Raging with power, floodwaters pick me up and toss me like a cat playing with a toy. I’m rushing past fallen trees, rocks and boulders. Periodically, I emerged from the floods to stand on a broad, white dam, where I could look out over the floods and consider what was happening. Sometimes, then, I felt worried.

But the dream’s evolution continued. While I never died, nor even felt terribly exerted by the dream’s events, I learned to navigate the waters. I was never in full control in any sense, but was staying afloat, avoiding obstacles and riding the sinuous waves.

Eventually in the dream, I began reaching a calm zone. ‘They’ were waiting for me in the calm, they being people, just people, nobody in any way special. Typically they were a man and a woman. All I fully understood in the dream was that I’d managed to exit the stormy, turbulent waters and reached a special place.

It was twilight there, and placid, a relief after the trying flood waters. Strangely, the dream identifies it as the North Pole – the top of the world. Stars are rising to light the moment. I’m invited to float out on calm black seas to reach the ultimate top of the world. It’s peaceful, restful. And so, I enter the water, which is cold, but not numbing, and float on my back out to the North Pole, where I gaze up at rich spectacle of stars, galaxies and nebulae.

Last night’s variation added a twist. As has happened more recently with the dream, the first act, where I’m young, and the skies darkened and the rains begin, was cut. I was immediately being carried by the currents. This time, the currents raced through icy white chasms and tubes. And this time, I was leading a small group, telling them what to do and urging them to follow my example. Reaching rocky or sandy banks from time to time and pausing on the journey, they were breathing hard, coughing and choking, bent over with weariness from their efforts. Each time, I let them rest and then said, “Come on. There’s more.” Then we plunged back into the water and rode the waves.

But in this iteration of the dream, when I reached the special place, I was pleased, joking with the other travelers, “Okay, you’ve gone through some tough places, but this one is something else,” setting them up to believe that, oh, no, there’s more? And so they said, with disappointed and weary sighs.

I led them into the twilight stillness where the others waited, grinning as the others explained, “You’ve reached the top of the world.” Indicating the smooth black water to one side, they continued, “Get on your back and float out, and you’ll be on top of the world.”

Smiling as my fellow travelers expressed puzzlement and skepticism, I lowered myself into the water and floated toward the North Pole on my back. And then, my fellow travelers began to follow….

 

5

Today’s Music

So many songs call me today. My spirits are high, but we’re bracing ourselves for a storm. The remnants of typhoon Songda is heading our way up in the Pacific NW, so thoughts drift that way as we prepare for high winds, power outages, and possible flooding. We appear to be on the fringe as we’re inland, but we’ve gone through storms elsewhere, so we prepare.

As always, though, I’m looking forward and back, riding the wave of the day. Some John Cougar Mellencamp creeps through my mind, as does Boston, Pit Bull and Farrell. But then comes a memory from 1971.

‘Riders on the Storm’ was the last song The Doors recorded before Jim Morrison’s death. I vividly remember the first time I heard it in Pittsburgh. I was fourteen, on the verge of fifteen, on the verge of moving out of my mother’s house to join my father. The day was overcast, with a slight drizzle, and this song played. It seemed perfect for my mood and the moment. After hearing it, I sat in a small shed I’d made out of found construction plywood and huddled as the rain finally opened up to full throttle.

1971 seemed like a continuation of harsh years and fast change for me. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had died the year before, and now Jim Morrison was dead. Listening to rock, drawing, and reading were my escapes, and one leg of that tripod was breaking down. It may sound depressing. I don’t consider it depressing but enriching, and the beginning of my growth as a more introspective person. Of course, I also became more withdrawn then, and socially awkward, trends I still continue. It probably didn’t help that I was reading books like ‘Catch 22’, ‘Catcher in the Rye’, ‘War and Peace’, ‘Cancer Ward’, and ‘Crime and Punishment’ in that period.

Stop and listen to the storm as we brace. Stay safe, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

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