Saturday, November 15, 2008
the waiting room
right at the end, the little dog finally begins talking again, still in her Queen's English, still about things muddled in the election. She is informed, in command of her facts, looks oddly good in her blue lipstick, but, as with such spouting types, talks when she wants to, for as long as she wants to, and doesn't care if you're listening. I had brought her to my mother, tired, waiting in the hard seats, for another leg of the journey, but the dog said nothing for the longest while as she sniffed around for scraps on the floor.
Earlier, in New York, I am making the decision whether or not to blow out my kitchen, though I don't really live there anymore and haven't quite seemed to accept that fact. I have two dogs now, both the size of my dear Zoe. Or bigger. Even bigger. One is Zoe and one has a bit more Dane in her. They are just back from a walk and I see the other is desperately thirsty and hungry (how long have I ignored them?). I hold this new ones giant head in my hand, love the weight and size of it - as I used to - as I fill a bowl of water and quickly another. When I put the bowls down the dogs growl at one another and I'm a bit scared. They scarcely fit in the room and I hope they don't tumble around, at each other. One of them my brother likes better than Zoe, saying Zoe is a bit removed (ya think?). My issue is how to move them, if I really don't live there anymore as (no invention here) they could likely not survive the brutal trip. Oscar says they can live with him in their apartment in Rego Park.
We are off then, my mother and brother and I.
There is a gigantic sweeping epic I scarcely remember, but the fast tankers in the harbor, wide-angle views down dramatically sloping high, dry mountains, a little metal trinket pressed into my hand by a stranger.
For much of the dream we are, like the dogs, simply waiting to be transported. One room we wait in is large, like a movie theater, darkened and with some steps down. Each person has a computer. Some are using it, mostly it's dark. Without a screen, separated from my family, I somehow am seeing clips of earlier family life. Mostly of my sister. The sound is off and I try to imagine what she is saying, desperately want to know what she is actually saying, but I fail in my dreams as I fail in my life to recall well. She looks just a little drunk but mostly just so very, very young and pretty. She is making friends with someone as she easily did. And I feel that terrible, extremely dull seriousness I felt when it was subtle, but obvious where things were going though everyone else was still laughing, at ease. I somehow enter into the space she is in and she tells me, with her winning, true enthusiasm about new people, how great this guy is and how beautiful his girlfriend is - who then walks up and goes off with him. My sister says audibly something like, "Hey! Soon!" They agree, wave pleasantly, and I'm left, for a moment devastated about all those she never got to meet, that we never got to share.
Not sure what's to bother in the telling of this except that I think I dreamt for 8 hours last night. Some bits I will leave out. Maybe all of it....
So hard to describe these things, how, in the darkened space of the waiting room lighter bits of idon'tknowwhat started to drift in, gather mass, momentum, become leaves or garbage, then women in their burkas and men in their luminous white robes and men in their military wear were herding them all like a waiter clears a table with a bread-crumber. I don't know what their equipment was: giant, flat, effective.
I say "What is happening?" to anyone. And someone says, "Just get out!"
I hurry back through the darkened seats, and feel rumbling in the floor from everyone moving. I see the white of my mother's hair in the back, see my sister actually there now, several rows ahead. She is completely wasted now, (as she would have been, reliably at a point in her struggles, with hours to kill in the dark). She has absolutely no idea where she is or what's happening (...do I?) and someone is there as someone was always there taking care of her like it was the first time or like they could help. I don't know how to get her to come along. I don't know if she does. She doesn't even seem to see me and masses of people are pressing behind me.
Later hours of the dream: shuttling from one place to another, the travel getting ever harder. There is a woman, like the young Dawn Allen, or like our new, most dear Hassan, who is oddly, utterly committed to keeping us safe, to getting us through the long, long lines and onto the bus (packed PACKED with humanity - I am the last one on and will lay on the floor) to our eventual plane home. After the bus, we are waiting outside. Just like Natalie was on the trip, and I was at ten, and perhaps still am, I instantly gravitate towards the animals, the strays - want a moment of their company, prefer it. I go up to the little dog, not my type, but cute anyway. I look close and see she is made up and quite confident and oblivious.
I am puzzled and charmed when she says,
"There it is. Should you care to believe what you're told, please do!"
Earlier, in New York, I am making the decision whether or not to blow out my kitchen, though I don't really live there anymore and haven't quite seemed to accept that fact. I have two dogs now, both the size of my dear Zoe. Or bigger. Even bigger. One is Zoe and one has a bit more Dane in her. They are just back from a walk and I see the other is desperately thirsty and hungry (how long have I ignored them?). I hold this new ones giant head in my hand, love the weight and size of it - as I used to - as I fill a bowl of water and quickly another. When I put the bowls down the dogs growl at one another and I'm a bit scared. They scarcely fit in the room and I hope they don't tumble around, at each other. One of them my brother likes better than Zoe, saying Zoe is a bit removed (ya think?). My issue is how to move them, if I really don't live there anymore as (no invention here) they could likely not survive the brutal trip. Oscar says they can live with him in their apartment in Rego Park.
We are off then, my mother and brother and I.
There is a gigantic sweeping epic I scarcely remember, but the fast tankers in the harbor, wide-angle views down dramatically sloping high, dry mountains, a little metal trinket pressed into my hand by a stranger.
For much of the dream we are, like the dogs, simply waiting to be transported. One room we wait in is large, like a movie theater, darkened and with some steps down. Each person has a computer. Some are using it, mostly it's dark. Without a screen, separated from my family, I somehow am seeing clips of earlier family life. Mostly of my sister. The sound is off and I try to imagine what she is saying, desperately want to know what she is actually saying, but I fail in my dreams as I fail in my life to recall well. She looks just a little drunk but mostly just so very, very young and pretty. She is making friends with someone as she easily did. And I feel that terrible, extremely dull seriousness I felt when it was subtle, but obvious where things were going though everyone else was still laughing, at ease. I somehow enter into the space she is in and she tells me, with her winning, true enthusiasm about new people, how great this guy is and how beautiful his girlfriend is - who then walks up and goes off with him. My sister says audibly something like, "Hey! Soon!" They agree, wave pleasantly, and I'm left, for a moment devastated about all those she never got to meet, that we never got to share.
Not sure what's to bother in the telling of this except that I think I dreamt for 8 hours last night. Some bits I will leave out. Maybe all of it....
So hard to describe these things, how, in the darkened space of the waiting room lighter bits of idon'tknowwhat started to drift in, gather mass, momentum, become leaves or garbage, then women in their burkas and men in their luminous white robes and men in their military wear were herding them all like a waiter clears a table with a bread-crumber. I don't know what their equipment was: giant, flat, effective.
I say "What is happening?" to anyone. And someone says, "Just get out!"
I hurry back through the darkened seats, and feel rumbling in the floor from everyone moving. I see the white of my mother's hair in the back, see my sister actually there now, several rows ahead. She is completely wasted now, (as she would have been, reliably at a point in her struggles, with hours to kill in the dark). She has absolutely no idea where she is or what's happening (...do I?) and someone is there as someone was always there taking care of her like it was the first time or like they could help. I don't know how to get her to come along. I don't know if she does. She doesn't even seem to see me and masses of people are pressing behind me.
Later hours of the dream: shuttling from one place to another, the travel getting ever harder. There is a woman, like the young Dawn Allen, or like our new, most dear Hassan, who is oddly, utterly committed to keeping us safe, to getting us through the long, long lines and onto the bus (packed PACKED with humanity - I am the last one on and will lay on the floor) to our eventual plane home. After the bus, we are waiting outside. Just like Natalie was on the trip, and I was at ten, and perhaps still am, I instantly gravitate towards the animals, the strays - want a moment of their company, prefer it. I go up to the little dog, not my type, but cute anyway. I look close and see she is made up and quite confident and oblivious.
I am puzzled and charmed when she says,
"There it is. Should you care to believe what you're told, please do!"
Thursday, November 13, 2008
इ ऍम बीइंग पुनिशेद.
ooh.what language is my title in and why??
i was writing: i am being punished.
because.....
not a week after leaving Cairo they discovered another pyramid 12 miles from our hotel!
and then this happened: a German stuck to a wall near the German Cultural Center in Cairo!!
so... i wrote, I am being punished, (i think by the oracle) for my not writing about our magnificent experiences, not a moment of which I wish to forget. hmm and now my title appears in arabic (?) - perhaps a curse for sneaking pictures in the tomb of Seti II. i hope that's the extent of it.
very strange
oh. speaking of which, here's the German fella at work:
i was writing: i am being punished.
because.....
not a week after leaving Cairo they discovered another pyramid 12 miles from our hotel!
and then this happened: a German stuck to a wall near the German Cultural Center in Cairo!!
so... i wrote, I am being punished, (i think by the oracle) for my not writing about our magnificent experiences, not a moment of which I wish to forget. hmm and now my title appears in arabic (?) - perhaps a curse for sneaking pictures in the tomb of Seti II. i hope that's the extent of it.
very strange
oh. speaking of which, here's the German fella at work:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)