they're back
They've been going on for some time now, but here are the most interesting and/or most recent ones:
This morning before I awoke:
Visiting Mommom's house.
(Mommom & Poppop lived in Delaware, maternal grandparents, intense connection to them even though I saw them every other year at most, Mommom left-handed like me, closet hoarder, died in her early 70s with Alzheimer's)
Anyway. Visiting Mommom's house. Jumble of stuff:
Mommom haphazardly driving me around in some big old car. She drives up some hill next to their house and turns around. The hill is the depository for her stuff, like she's overturned her attic onto it. We drive over a plastic Halloween mask that looks familiar; there's another one on a pile. I see some Strawberry Shortcake things. I'm eyeing the stuff, and she says we should go through it later so I can take some home.
I'm in another room, also completely cluttered. I hear cousin Lindsay talking to Mommom, and M. says L. should go see what I'm doing. I pretend to be asleep and she comes in and accuses me of pretending. I "wake" and we hug. She's still a little girl, and her hair has changed from brown to orange. I remark upon this.
We're getting ready for dinner. Philip (brother) is in some crazy-patterned short muumuu. We all kind of ignore it. There's an adults' table and a kids' table, at which we sit. I comment on Lindsay's hair turning orange and say it must be on both sides of the family (J.C. is also red-haired, but that was inherited from his mother, who married into the family.) I say that her eyes are a different color than his, though - his are chestnut (he blushes), whereas hers are mottled with lighter bits.
Night before:
I see some great barbershop quartet in Portland and on my way down to Salem, tell this little cafe/diner about them. The diner has the group's name, with others, on the front, but they don't know about the quartet. I hear later that they perform there and become very popular. I am satisfied.
Philip has played a prank on me: somehow taken certain nasty-looking organs from my belly. I see them on an AV cart beside a VHS player. I try to get Mom's attention and point it out to her (I can't talk). I point urgently and then pat my gut. She can't really see what it is and picks it up, then is disgusted by it. We get it into a bag so we can get it put back inside me. It's not life-threatening, just inconvenient and uncomfortable. Philip says to Mom that he was thinking of moving to Portland but he'd better steer clear of her since he played that prank. I can finally talk and say I can tell him why he shouldn't move to Portland: he should be steering clear of me. It doesn't occur to him that I am much of anything to consider.
He drives me somewhere in a van. We're in a blend of Portland and New York. We're on a street parallel to the (lower) 405 corridor and there are no bridge-streets on which to turn left, over it. There's just this open trench of busy highway below. We finally find a street on which to turn left, which is familiar to me; I say, there's Mary's (strip club?), we can turn here. I say we should park so I can show him where I used to work; he would like the building. It's on the second story of a building; much like Margaret Furlong (where I actually did work in Salem). We park and as we get out we're suddenly met by two bouncers who need ID. I've forgotten my purse somewhere, but I find ID, and they give us badges or something. I see a transvestite hooker walking down a steep hill; she drops her keys and bends down to pick them up. I can feel (or think I feel) Philip looking in astonishment and perhaps disgust. I pick up a free newspaper. I awaken before we get anywhere.
Week or so ago, afternoon nap:
Reading Leafy's journal. I'm suddenly a spectator of her experience, inside of her memory. Kind of similar to those hidden-image pictures; you focus your eyes in a certain way and you can see inside. Some house that occasionally assembles all the rooms together in a row so furniture is clustered together and beds can be stripped assembly-line style, more convenient for the service staff. Somebody gets kind of tangled up in the furniture and it's all bundled off somewhere. I'm left to myself in this row of empty rooms, separated by curtains. All the floors are covered in thick, luscious carpet. There's can lighting overhead in each room. I'm on one level, and I open the curtain into the next level. I step down one step into it. I step down through the curtain into the next room, and the next. Curtains open and open for me. I call to my mom that she should read over my shoulder and see this. I go down, down, down. I start to run down them. The rooms are endless.
I open the next curtain and am startled - I scream a little. This is the last of the rooms, and there's a velvet ribbon-making machine, which I almost bump into because of the illusion - it looks like a long view of infinite rooms. I read Leafy's narrative about this machine, made for a child - only one child can be found in a village at one time - who can handle the pain involved in making this gorgeous, expensive ribbon. A child who enjoys it.