NEW OWNER AT THE PAPER – a Marge Schott-type – comes through, demanding everything be tightened up, financially, especially. Tighter, more threatening, a real sense of being watched. No more slides or breaks.

Of course, this kills any sense of self-motivation or deep caring about one’s contribution to the enterprise. “They” are taking as much as they can, and likely a lot more, at a superficial level.

People are removing their personal effects from the plant – how symbolic! (I started to type “planet.”)

But what about the moldy fur coats?

 

RETURNING TO THE OFFICE, all of the chairs are gone. In use for a conference elsewhere. Yet we’re expected to work – productive output – as usual.

 

AM GOING TO WORK AGAIN as features editor/managing editor out in some steamboat town. Learning the ropes again, learned that (so-and-so) was the source of dissatisfaction leading to my termination before.

Adding, looking at alumni association announcements of big promotions, the photos of new administrators etc., the portraits, especially: that well-groomed confidence. I’ll never have that look, not again. Maybe I’ve passed too far over into the realm of ambiguity or out of the superficial or just feel no desire to be that politically involved, meaning the power trip.

 

THE DOCTOR MOVES OUT my bookshelf during a staff meeting while I’m flirting with a blonde new correspondent. How curious, considering his reputation and my standoffish reputation.

 

5 O’CLOCK SHADOW. She? Or Me?

 

“EVERYBODY’S WORKING their butt off.”

“Leave me a note anytime you’re out of the building.”

 

A CONSULTANT OBSERVES AND evaluates my work on Saturday or in the slot. “You’re doing too much. You should delegate more of these tasks. (Fill in the blank) once had this great insight on a day when he needed to get away in time for an evening meeting: every manager should plan to be out of the office by 4:30, to be able to pick up his or her spouse.

 

I SHUT THE CLOCK RADIO OFF and nearly oversleep work!

THIS MORNING I WAS A CHAMPIONSHIP swimmer. A symphony violinist. Not performing/competing, actually, but enjoying the status associated with each.

 

I’M BEING TOLD OF THIS ORCHESTRA that performs without written music. For that matter, without rehearsal, either. Essentially, the musicians keep playing until they find the right key, and take off from there.

 

A LITTLE LATER, I’M OFF, driving somewhere – maybe cross country – and my unseen companion is the same one who had told me about the ensemble. As we’re talking, we become aware of some unearthly music coming from the car radio. Here we are, perhaps in Kansas when this happens. It starts out as an array of strumming and plucking – guitars, mandolins, and the like. Maybe Balkan instruments, or Indonesian, it doesn’t matter. There’s something shimmering to it, and unformed, as bowed strings enter every which way. Eventually we realize they’re trying to follow the conductor’s singing – here’s the melody, now develop it (a woman conductor; the effect is like Pauline Moon with the children’s choir at church). Suddenly, there’s an up-swell of cellos in unison as the magic takes hold.

The previous night, the jazz host played a large selection Joe Zawinul and the Weather Report, with their simultaneous solo improvisations, start to finish in each piece, which likely influenced the dream.

 

IN AN ARTS CIRCLE, TURNS OUT to be a rehearsal, and I’m given a part in an upcoming show. Maybe it’s my age, but I’m having trouble learning my part, especially the big solo, like a tenor, maybe. First performance, I get through it fine, lots of support from the rest of the cast, including some kids. Second performance, ditto. Third performance, though, I blank totally and finally look down to the conductor in the pit, who starts mouthing my lines. I more or less mumble my way through, like I’ve never seen or heard them before except that it suffices. (The maestro goes from being a Harry Becket English type to George Emlen.) I hunker down for the next night, step up and nail it, reveling in my high B-flat.

Could this be more a reflection of my worries as a writer than about anything musical?

 

AT A CONCERT OF LUSH, LATE Romantic orchestral score and then, maybe listening on the radio. At finale, applause begins slowly, weakly, and I’m perplexed, considering the level of playing and the power of the piece. But then it gains intensity, with bravos and other cheers – and three barking dogs.

Seeing-eye dogs, the radio announcer informs us, don’t bark when seeing another seeing-eye dog or hear barking.

Yes, applause, with barking dogs.

IN THE KITCHEN, A GRAY DAY, she’s made some kind of decision, has the Question: “What are you going to do about it? It could be the answer of our marriage.”

Afternoon rainy and green; the soil, saturated.

Smiling at her, “I don’t know. Sounds like your problem. How do you want me to answer? It’s a no-win. Seems to me you’re full of … (One, two, three.) Besides, I have a date in an hour.”

& gave her a hug.

 

FOR SOME REASON, THE HOT WATER in our big bungalow was not working. We had to be somewhere in western Pennsylvania the next morning – a job, perhaps. “Oh, we can stop at the Holiday Inn on the way. Shower in one of the empty rooms.” Except we got started late, and entered a room shortly after 8. Turned out it wasn’t empty either, but was occupied by two single, very attractive young women. Hailey got her shower in; not sure about me. As I was dressing, one of the girls was taking a deep bath. The maids were circulating. I couldn’t find matching shoes, but we left anyway. At the doorway, Hailey was holding up some see-through panties, with a mischievous leer.

My, I could have steered this dream in a much richer direction, had I been more attentive … and less responsible. Turned Hailey into the procurer for my menage a trois. Oh, my.

WE’VE JUST PURCHASED an old house (this picks up on a much earlier dream, a white frame on Patterson Road) when she fills the bathtub for us, in a kind of seduction attempt … I resist, it overflows. I grab a fluffy lavender bath towel to mop up the mess before it drips through the ceiling below, … irritating those neighbors(!) As I grab the towel, I comment that it’s my current love. Still, she wants sex again “for old times’ sake.”

 

AS SOME TYPE OF ATTEMPTED reconciliation, we decide to take a cruise, on a parade of cruise ships that ply the Ohio River as a kind of amusement park/smorgasbord … something we’ve apparently done before and enjoyed. The fun is somehow in a ride – somehow akin to a roller coaster – that goes from ship to ship … that is, also akin to Kings Island … only this year, the big thrill is the gap between ships in which the “riders” fall to the water before being scooped up to the ship ahead. Only when I’m cast out, I manage to break my fall, float in ways resembling a parachutist, and land softly in the water. But rather than being scooped up, I remain there and am soon swimming down a street of amphibious cars and trucks. I wind up at her house and am even climbing around on the oven and sink when I realize the presence of a scholarly yogi who asks some pointed questions. Maybe I’ve been with other ashramites all along. Eventually, she arrives, miffed, with a sense of Scarface off in the background somewhere (driving away, it seems). I tell her she finally has what she’s wants, that I’m leaving for good, and I brush past her out the door. (Only later do I worry about the credit cards.)

Somehow, this picks up on an earlier dream – perhaps repeated – of an amusement park somehow like a zoo but filled with food stands. (Lobster in the Rough, expanded? The Deerfield Fair?) There, I also eventually find myself outside the fence, but also somehow freed.

At any rate, this was disturbing enough to wake me at 7 a.m.

Why her? I am feeling somewhat adrift these days. And financially inadequate, looking at plumbing and other household projects as well as the charter school’s shortfall and a desire for a vacation.

 WE’RE ON A TOUR BUS, coming down along the Northwest coast. The scenery is gorgeous, with the blazing orange light of late afternoon among swirling clouds. We cross a long bridge into America – the Columbia, I first think, though I can see little below or beyond – we come to a kind of Sturbridge Village of the Far West sort, debark briefly. I look up to see in the parting clouds a chevron of mountain peaks. I identify them, with Baker and Shuskin and the baby in front, but the clouds close over before you can view them, though you try.

Only days before, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d want to travel.

 

SEVERAL TIMES IN THE NIGHT, I encountered Abraham Lincoln’s Best Friend. Maybe not completely, but at least close to it, probably from his New Salem days. A storekeeper of some sort, maybe a printer with the shop “out back,” at least the action appeared to be in the other room. He greeted me / us across a rough plank counter, had some Blacks working behind him. With impassioned, watery eyes kept trying to tell me / us about a meeting or gathering for later that night, but carefully, not to be overheard by spies. The general plight, fear in the air.

 

I’M OUT DRIVING ON SOME CURVING rural roads I once knew. Take a turn to the left. Somehow, I wind up returning to the Ashram for a visit. From the circle, Swami addresses me by my street name, obviously a rebuke, and then asks, “What are you doing here? Why did you come?” Obviously, there will be no satisfactory answer. I wind up leaving.

Since it’s a vacation, I stay overnight elsewhere. Find there’s a public evening performance on the street. It’s an Ashram presentation from the Mahabharata; Swami, seeing me, is quite upset, shoots darts. I get the picture, and leave – realize as I’m going she’s still entangled.

I’M DRAGGED TO AN INVESTMENT seminar in a rambling, modern one-story home. Maybe we’d received an invitation addressed to someone else. At any rate, went. Midway through the presentation, I realized the numbers didn’t add up and left but tripped on my way out. [Now in a different room, with sun: trying to gather up my goods spilled from my purple bag.] The pastor’s wife shows up, indicates she’s not happy with his participation in this scheme. The pastor, strangely resembling the black-belt master, appears and tries to argue me out of my reluctance to invest – turns on me, “How did you find out about this?” My last remaining items are under the head of a sleeping baby – a sick baby. I go to get a pillow so I can retrieve my remaining items. When I return, my bag has been stolen.

Don’t trust a pastor with investment schemes.

 

WE’RE OFF SOMEWHERE THAT vaguely resembles the historic manor overlooking the river one town over – there’s some development but the landscape’s mostly open with green fields. While strolling alone, I notice a dark Victorian house with Japanese touches and tell myself to bring my daughter back to see it herself. Then, as I approach a crossroads, I see an even more elaborate version, this one with a Queen Ann with a Buddha face occupying half of the second story, its mouth opening out on to a side porch. It’s a truly stunning residence. And then my daughter drives the blue Prius down the crossroad. I wave to her to look the other way, at the house, but she waves in return only at me and heads off to another destination. We’ll rendezvous later.

Another dream intervenes (now forgotten) but the next thing I remember is entering the cellar, which contains an upright stone monument of some note. John and Sarah Dawson are already there. She tells me his family knew the owners of the house and he once wrote a poem in honor of the stone, which he now recites. Not bad for a physicist, I think.

Somehow, we become locked in the cellar, along with another couple. There’s a door to the outside, but when we follow, it leads to hurricane fencing and concertina wire. We’re trapped?

Not quite. John knows some secret to get through, and it leads us to an outdoor dining room, one with white walls and black iron gates – the iron topped by a wiggle of white paint to indicate they were Catholic.

John explains the owners were Germans who lived most of their lives in Japan before retiring to this site, presumably with their children and grandchildren.

 

SOMEBODY’S EXPRESSING APPROVAL of my shoes, maybe even adding them to a Ten Best list. “But they’re cheap,” I counter, “I bought them at the Kittery outlets years ago.”
“Doesn’t matter,” comes the reply. “Look at that hand stitching and the fact they’re comfy.”

TRAVELING WITH A LINGUIST, somewhere in Eastern Europe … perhaps the Balkans … or perhaps even parts of Asia, such as Kurdistan. At any rate, he was explaining the addition of syllables to a place name to indicate our destination as we headed toward the train station or a marketplace or the like. We were in crowded towns, of dark brown shades, all the same.

As the scene unfolded, we agreed to part, planning to reunite, which left me to wander on my own for a while. Of course, I became confused but not panicked. At one point, I actually saw him and another – maybe even an old girlfriend of mine – walking a street below me, though I was unable to catch up.

Somehow, I became part of a wedding party reception. An old girlfriend, in fact, maybe even the same one I’d glimpsed earlier, though we were now quite distant memories of one another. Still, when our paths crossed in the crowd, we acknowledged each other’s presence, yet I’m not sure either of us wished the other well. Still, I was dragged off to festivities at a long bar with seats all around, like the Tiki bar at Lobster on the Rough, only larger. It was late afternoon or early evening – dark, that is, with twinkle lights – a Renoir kind of scene. I was told to order dinner, but getting a menu was another matter. All of the menu-like brochures said nothing of the food, as far as well could tell, much less the prices. As I hesitated, I told the waiter to go on, I’d catch up to him. Finally, it came down between a steak at $60 and lobster, also $60. I ordered the lobster. I went over to the waiter, whispered my decision to him, and was told, “Wait,” and soon a lobster on a platter was handed to me, right there. I was also told, by my neighbors at the bar, to go ahead and begin eating while the food was still hot, so I was one of the first to do so. It was a large lobster, over two pounds, served with a kind of chili on the claws. (We’d had a bean soup earlier that evening, reminding me of chili.) The father of the bride was picking up the tab, probably $8,000 for the event. (My first lover’s daddy? Maybe because I’d come across his obit again earlier in the week.) Even so, I was aware that I was one of two or three “poor boys” admitted to this affair.

The next morning, perhaps, on a lawn overlooking a lake, I was told by another participant how much he enjoyed my presence, that I was one of the few people who could carry on a conversation, who had something to say, who had really done things. So that’s why I’d been admitted.

 

TRYING TO CONSOLE a deeply depressed Prince Charles. (Well, in some ways he was more like Mick Jagger. But when a dream imposes an identity, we stick to it. Besides, we were both much younger than we are now.) Considering the circumstances, we were getting along quite well. He even asked for a long hug before running off to jump on the mattress, like a trampoline, and then a set of sofas as the scene morphed into a hotel lobby as others, including the girl, drifted into the setting.

It started off when a woman I was involved with (a contra dancer?) who worked in his household or some other organization of his wondered if I would ask him, when he arrived, what he thought of her. Well, he and I hadn’t been introduced, so I was reluctant but now see that as an American, for me that wasn’t the problem.

Since he was essentially alone, I was able to strike up a conversation, however awkwardly it began. He did indeed recognize her name (Kate, never mind, not his daughter-in-law but more like Kate Moss) and rattled off a list of statistics and the like – nothing of an emotional nature, but still thoroughly informed.

A while later, I asked if he was a reader, and he assured me he was. I was beginning to tell him of Nicholson Baker’s work when we were interrupted.

WALDEN POND. IT’S DEEP WINTER, with a good two feet of snow on the ground. My thoughts turn to logistics: getting there from the town, what books and projects I’ll be taking, what food and cooking gear (if any) I should pack.

The prospect is liberating and exciting – an invitation to get down to some Real Work.

 

I’VE BEEN OFF SOMEWHERE and am returning with a friend as we come over the crest of a hill and look down to a very green meadow. A figure runs across the field. A moose? Or a horse? But a very full tail follows, and then I realize it’s a giant squirrel.

No wonder I awaken!

 

WAS SOMEHOW VISITING BROWN, a small group somehow in a social setting when we “went out back” to see is latest work. (This is where the dream picks up:) Not at his house and farm in Berwick, but rather beside the sea or a large gray lake. It’s a former industrial site, and he leads us into a large half-shell, somewhat like the Hatch Shell along the Charles except this has large piles of dirt inside, the kind that have been moved about by bulldozers. The shell is surfaced in rough concrete, and this is what he’s been painting on. Another person tells me Brown’s been doing very little of the painting these days but has others, including Mennonites, as apprentices who are doing much of the work he envisions. It’s largely gray, with some red and yellow. Brown tells me he’ll never be finished with this project and has no intention to.

We step back and the structure is no longer open to the air but rather goes back like a large Quonset hut or airplane hangar with office cubicles along the floor. This time, much of the surface is salmon or pinkish. What’s happening overhead is quite incredible, a contemporary Sistine Chapel. I retreat to a far corner to sit down to take it all in. Brown approves of my move with a nod or a wink.

In the final tableau, I’m outside in open ponderosa and see three typewriters in the sagebrush or palmetto. Warily, watching for rattlesnakes, I step out to get one in order to finish some project we’re engaged in. That’s when I notice the IBM Selectric II in a taupe shade. Before I can retrieve it, a stiletto-heeled secretary in black hosiery approaches to say, in effect, keep my hands off. As I retreat, something drops from a tree onto my neck and shoulders. I’m trying to brush the snake off as I awaken.

A rather elaborate sequence of dreams after drafting a letter to our former landlords. I had fallen asleep especially early, around 8 p.m., and this was kicking in probably around 4 a.m. and continuing until 6:

I’m in Yakima (actually had an elaborate “east of Yakima” dream about six months ago, heading through the small towns off toward Tri-Cities … no trace of its content now). Except that this one could as easily be Binghamton or even Manchester.

It picks up as we’re coming over the crest of a high hill overlooking the city. We’re on a clean concrete boulevard on a sunny day, the downtown arrayed below us – and golden hillsides overlooking it from the other side. Blue sparkling river flows through it. (Columbia River, as it is up in Wenatchee?) We’re chatting about my return visit after so long.

Actually, I now remember there was an earlier episode about taking my family out West … spurred by the letter, actually … so they become part of the crowd in this series, even when they’re masked as others, I suppose. In actually, it’s a golden morning after a very glum Sunday.

It’s a smooth sweep downhill, skirting the downtown. We’re talking about a movie that was done here. (Maybe even picking up on another recent dream of visiting Ivar’s orchard, which in reality could have been in York County as easily as Washington State.)

Next thing I know is we’re driving along the sparkling blue river. From the angle of the sunlight, we must have been headed east. The freeway is in a set of elaborate caging – wiring like extended lobster pots, actually – sprinkled by a earlier shower perhaps or occasional irrigation. A vast serpentine structure along the river and overhead – was the other side cliff? “They haven’t done a movie with this yet, have they?” Laughter. And our guide (Phyllis?) replying, “Not yet.” It was very cinematic and joyful.

We pull off at a small mill area … like those of New England. (I now remember yet another recent dream, of what I pegged as eastern Ohio or even West Virginia: driving along an industrial valley, leaving the freeway and visiting within the varied small cities. Many shades of Warren, Niles, Youngstown, with moats thrown in. Maybe this dream repeatedly. Trying to reconnect with something lost.) We park and walk past or through a small Catholic church and out on a shaded plaza beside a mill. In the window, I see someone sitting. Looks like Carl P., only turning to face us, is a woman. Not pleased by our banter, either. We start to borrow a picnic table bench to use elsewhere, then I turn around and replace it. Glancing down the street beside the church, I notice that what first appeared to be triple-deckers beside the mill are actually one long, complex series of stucco apartments with Roman Catholic crosses in strategic places.

I think we had been visiting in one of the apartments … a rather erotic introduction for me … though it’s all fuzzy now. Again, later vague memories of other apartment dreams and student-residents. Colleges or art schools. Maybe Cincinnati and theaters or music.

We exit through the church, and dash across the street to a parking lot – all set high above the river, like the Sam Hill museum and Stonehenge in the Horse Heaven Hills. The headlights of a procession approach – either a wedding or, as it turns out, a funeral. Now off to the side, we watch two groups in conflict – the funeral contingent above, with the hearse, and a group taunting and jeering below. Some kind of minor thug – a woman? – is to be buried after a funeral mass.

But first, we’re off. Somehow, our own crowd has changed. It’s more crowded, and Phyllis must be driving. A teenage orphan is snuggled up next to me and several others. (It’s getting very erotic.) She’s freckled, open-faced, and has somehow managed to live on her own – a victim of the thug’s oppression. A blanket’s thrown over us. I reach down to scratch my leg (I’m wearing shorts) but am scolded for touching someone else. Lift the blanket, and a face looks up at us. “Sorry. I’ll keep my hands up here, to myself.” Laughter. There are other bodies pressed in against us, too. It’s a crowded, but joyful trip.

Turns out this is part of a group that sees this as the moment of liberation from the thug’s circle.

A leap again, and we’ve stopped at a small roadside restaurant called, it turns out, Baklava’s. Looks like a Carvel’s or Baskin-Robbins. We’re running around in some confusion. I see bagels for sale, but not what I’m seeking. (Something big and fluffy, like a cinnamon roll, or even baklava.) “Oh, the coffee comes with baklava,” I’m told, and yes, the coffee is dark and thick.

After I get my order, one of our companions (not Phyllis?) goes up to the counter, where the manager (I presume) in a red-plaid shirt is at the counter. She squirts him with a fountain pen-turned-hypodermic, hitting him with a dark liquid. He falls over backward. He was one of the thugs and we’ve made our hit. We run from the store and no one pursues us to the parking lot. Good thing, since my car keys are tangled in my pocket. (So I’m driving now?) Even with the delay, there’s no sensation of panic. We’re on the side of justice, however illicit. The people’s side. Justice has been served. It’s still morning.

LIVING AGAIN IN AN OLD LIMESTONE dorm, had a room in each of two or three buildings, under the pretense of opening some kind of retail store in all but one. For some reason, though, none of the doors would lock; or if they were locked, they wouldn’t hold. Anybody could push in. I was greatly annoyed – after all, I couldn’t be everywhere at once; besides, I had to be away for classes and the library, too, even though nobody actually broke in.

On the way back to one of the dorms, I saw a two-story building that had smoke rolling out of its windows – “Oh, no! It’s the firehouse!” – and then bright flames licked from the structure.

Poetic justice, perhaps, more than alarm – and relief wasn’t our building.

OUR building?

 

I RETURN TO MY APARTMENT, which is at the bottom of a staircase in a carpeted basement. The apartment is essentially one room, with the door in the corner and a panel of windows along the hallway – a commercial feel to it, like a small store. But as I approach with a friend, we realize the door is agape – and everything has been cleaned out, except for my violin case and same papers atop the closet. Somehow, I’m not disturbed by all the loss.

This leaps to something from another set of dreams, the door latch that will not lock – which has been the case in this apartment. “They” finally got me, and that’s it. Except it’s somehow also liberating.

This came the morning after our trip to IKEA, with all of its designer small-scale apartments, and my unexpected surge of feelings of poverty no doubt arising from my sudden “retirement” with its accompanying issues of finances that still need to be addressed. So who was with me? You? Even so, I felt insured … and that all my creative work and notes could be recovered. That, before clothing and kitchen ware!

THE BELLE-ETTE AND HER HUSBAND are hosting a party at the old Cape across the street. The lovely A twins are seducing me, or seduced. I never could tell them apart.

We go to an upstairs bed, entwine in evening rain.

Out the window we view an incredible forest that had always been hidden by the houses on our street. (Oakdale and Ashland are, after all, forest names.)

A good-sized stream runs in a valley, and a waterfall back there, though this is a big-city neighborhood.

The nearest house, out beyond that (the dairy, in reality, where those falls would be – has in reality been sold and is out of business). The woods, dense as Jay Lower’s, whose land probably triggered this.

The idea of a forest in that yard now amazes.

There were only the two ash trees in front, and the towering cottonwood behind.

All roped in by a slew of utility wires.

 

A MAILBOX, LIKE MY CHILDHOOD home’s. I see a big brown envelope to me (yellow slip attached), even though the mailman hasn’t made today’s rounds yet. (What was his name, Mister …)

There’s a pink envelope waiting at the bungalow across the street. Above and behind the milk box, I find a whole bunch of mail to me.

 

CAMPING IN THE BACKYARD – no tent – when the phone rings, very muffled, as if within a potholder – when I find it and answer, there’s a warning of a coming storm. At last, in the northeast sky, I see it, the tornado – which turns and comes toward me, veering toward the neighbors’ garage – IT SCARES ME AWAKE, even as I realize it’s traveling backward, toward the southwest. (Contrary to science.)