Saturday, August 15, 2009

end of summer

I say "Is that _____?" It is a filmmaker friend of mine, just returned from travels. He is sleeping in the water, his head well under the surface. He's fast asleep.

I see his inseparable friend floating nearby.
At least his pretty girlfriend has half her body, the top half, out on the beach. She, too is asleep.

I wade into the water above my waist and gently try to wake him, lifting his head up above the surface.

I hold him like a son, look down at him like Michaelangelo's Mary. He is alive, but draped that way.

I don't want to tell him so I say nothing but rotate to turn him around, still holding him sideways across my arms and he slowly wakes to see his friend: under water, not asleep or awake.

6 comments:

Beilezebub said...

You must have some sort of special, perhaps secret, relationship with them, Water signifies your control over your emotions. And then you cradle him in such a manner. I didn't read that you were upset in your dream.

glad the dreams are back. but i'm selfish that way.

Laura Hohlwein said...

well i don't think i have any particular relationship with them - but admiring their youth and worthy worldly direction.

i think this dream (the topic of which is obviously important to me) is more an example of one of those dream tenets: that we are everyone in the dream.

Usually, I don't buy that but here I find it useful. so yes here how it might be wise to consider if I might be susceptible to a similar, unconscious slipping under and away; how I see my drowned dearest friend and know that though that is true, I must try to save what I can; how I see that a fresh, beloved part of me is half out of this particular pool and will survive; how i save and pity and almost maternally care for myself in the more still now pool of my emotions, as you credibly suggest; how i don't want to tell myself directly about what has happen as I don’t want to be responsible for that hurt so i redirect myself gently (buoyed in that emotional realm) knowing I must, on my own, with my own eyes, again wake to what is.

But I think the calmness you speak of suggests a certain accustom that is good, more peaceful, less directly vulnerable and more able to offer self-care.

(i'm finding it interesting how (like with Frodo in Tolkein - wounds are inevitably and unwittingly felt near their anniversaries).
and so (though i am generally very fine)...the end of summer brings with it such images, in waking and in sleep.

not hilarious fun. Anyway, I hope you're well.
thanks, as ever, for reading and commenting.
it means a lot to me that you're 'selfish that way'. I find it incredibly kind.

goldi159 said...

the emotions I can feel reading your line are "hard stuff" ..and the tears are rollling down my face--but there is nothing You could have done to change the past!

Laura Hohlwein said...

thank you, alexander. i came back here to delete that as perhaps it's a bit much.

i appreciate so much how you know and remember and love my dear sister. and thanks for saying what you did.

i'm still working on believing that. now it feels like i could have tried harder. then, i remember, i didn't know how to.

much love to you.
i've been missing you and thinking of you often.

love to all, please.
and a big hug to you.

goldi159 said...

I can not sleep..because of "this" thinking about years going "round"- anniversaries of dark impacts: This is not "too much" - it is a force and feeling to be let OUT.
we talked about this sitting in the garden in the sun. "energy is never lost - love is never lost - those things are " not to be lost" but never to be forgotten. No possibilities of action were given in the past, no way of "try harder" ! just remember "love is never lost" and all the energy comes back with all the aspects of eternity DO not loose it - just feel it!

Balldinger said...

Hey Laura ~ if there were electric fish with many colors in your dream, do you think the water would have glowed with telepathy or split off into a zillion jet streams angling for South America? Great dream!

I've dreamed so many times of being taken away by the ocean, but mostly in my 20's and early 30's. Now I feel like Tom Waits when he says, "The ocean doesn't want me today..." Peace and purple glitter.