16:37:01 - 2001-02-13
dream
My grandmother is dying. She wants to live but she doesn't have enough lung left...thank you Philip Morris. Thank you so much...did you get my thank you gift yet? It was nothing, really. Go ahead, try and guess what it is, shake it, you hear a noise? Alarm clock?
Close.
To say we were "tight" is to acknowledge the lack of non-romantic terms of endearment in our language (I'm thinking there's gotta be more in like, Italian or Greek or one of those other men-kiss cultures). Let's just say that our neurosis are grounded in the same soil- that kinda history and bond. So when my mother broke it to me how bad things were...I took it hard. Hungry and fatigued to begin with, my powerlessness to make things better for my grandmother overwhelmed me to the point that this atheist almost prayed. I shook it off, but that same night I had this hyper-vivid dream. And whether the ignis fatuus always hums with inchoate visions that a mind attuned can deliver or translate; or whether I dipped my bucket deep enough into the uncharted depths of my polluted subconscious to draw up something cold and clean...or whether there's really any difference even, I can't say...but I think the answer my be intimated by the dream itself.
Basically my Grandmother was driving me somewhere...my "uncle's house". And, as we began to get close to our destination, the terrain became supernaturally exquisite. It looked rather like the hill country of Texas, where I was born, only everything was hyper-beautiful. Every blade of St. Augustine was as wide as my thumb- the buttercups were the size of eggplants. The trunks of the oaks were a cool dark blue and the morning mist materialized around the washes as solid clouds of jewel-encrusted spun fiberglass. Everything in light glistened, and everything in shadow revealed it's hidden pallet of blues and greens. The road rolled and doubled back and the only sign of human presence we passed were two red bicycles laying in the grass and, in the distance, two women in 19th century period-costumes picnicking in a glade. Yep, there were glades even. My grandmother at this point was still "driving", but there was no longer any corporeal evidence of her in the car...so "we" dipped down into a valley and I was delivered to the house.
My "uncle's house" was huge and paneled with dark wood, in sort of an impeccably executed American colonial style, and it was simply but tastefully furnished in the same vein. It suggested wealth, but seemed comfortably lived-in. At some point I realized it wasn't my uncle's house at all, and me and a (seemingly) random number of my friends and associates who somehow happened to be inside began to search for the owner. We traveled from empty room to empty room. And even though the Lord of the manor was nowhere to be found, there was no anxiety. Everybody was joking and smiling. The last room we came to was a library with books floor to ceiling...and in the center of the room a lone rocking chair. We immediately recognized the master of the house draped across the back of the chair...bearing a distinct resemblance (somewhat disturbing really, in retrospect) to "Bad Andy" from the Dominoes Pizza commercials. And, since he was a puppet, someone had to put their hand inside him and help him speak. Which, as everyone stood smiling and expectant in a semi-circle, I proceeded to do.
He said something, and I began to voice it but woke up immediately. Maybe that means I'm supposed to recount the dream...if that's the point, and the dream is some sort of parable, then maybe something's trying to tell me we're all from 'heaven'. And if we seek out 'God', he will ultimately 'speak' through us...
Or maybe God just wants us to have free crazy bread with every large two-topping pizza. I dunno.
