More Self-Explanatory Dreams, And A Bit of Birthday Musing
This is probably the first dream in which I had blue hair. I'm not sure what that means, but it probably means something. Maybe that I wish I lived in a blue state? But most states are actually purple, so that's rather a pipe dream regardless.
Speaking of pipes, my dream. I found myself invited to a feminist extravaganza of sorts, in which there were all kinds of games and flashy-fun opps to make a political statement. At one point I found myself in a movie-theater-type building, climbing hand over hand up a rope in a tiny elevator shaft (this was the unrealistic part of the dream, mind you; I completely failed this task in gym.) made of quilt squares depicting scenes and slogans and situations from feminist culture (some were from Indigo Girls songs.). Hand over hand I went, along with other women, other ropes, all laughing and chanting. As I reached the top I was generously given a cool long jean skirt with some of the squares sewn (artfully ripped) on the pockets, and a peasant shirt to wear over my T-shirt. I dressed in my new clothes and hung out in this small, cramped eyrie of women shouting joyfully. There was a mirror and I paused to look in it and adjust my hair, which was in lovely curls and all blue. I found I was wearing the skirt backward, so I unbelted it and turned it around. Then I searched the messy dressertop for a lipstick sample and applied a little lipstick. There, I thought, I'm ready for the revolution.
After a few dream-convolutions, I found that the eyrie had become open-air, looking down on a plaza headed by a building with columns. Between the columns, out-of-sight but still audible, Bill Clinton was about to give a speech. Then somebody yelled something about Sam Seaborn for President, and everyone laughed indulgently.
Then either the dream changed or I woke up, I can't quite remember. Throughout there had been this vague sense of danger, but it was only peripheral, never in my direct line of sight, never completely crowding my immediate sense of being alone in a happy crowd and more or less content.
I'm turning 29 next week, and at times I'm not altogether sure I'm ready for the revolution. Not the feminist revolution, that's a bit too amorphous for me to think about, but my own revolution. This is the time when a cog rolls over and people begin to get serious about the business of living life. They search for a mission, they finish taking stock of who they are and begin to put their talents and energies to work. I've felt that impulse growing in me, interrupted now and again by the exigencies of merely surviving; it's still there in the background, quietly gathering force. I believe this is going to be a very interesting year.
Which sounds like the old curse -- may you live in interesting times -- but unfortunately I asked for it. Years ago I wished to live in the sort of times where choices were stark and awe-full: do I hide this Jew from the SS? Do I speak out against maltreatment of the elderly? I thought I would never see such times; I was wrong. My personal timeline seems to have intersected with the "interesting times" I should never have wished for. I have begun to feel fear, and I suspect that feeling will only recur. But my course, I believe, is set: to serve my creative gifts, and to hunger and thirst for justice.
If that is revolution, it is only an index of the times.
This is probably the first dream in which I had blue hair. I'm not sure what that means, but it probably means something. Maybe that I wish I lived in a blue state? But most states are actually purple, so that's rather a pipe dream regardless.
Speaking of pipes, my dream. I found myself invited to a feminist extravaganza of sorts, in which there were all kinds of games and flashy-fun opps to make a political statement. At one point I found myself in a movie-theater-type building, climbing hand over hand up a rope in a tiny elevator shaft (this was the unrealistic part of the dream, mind you; I completely failed this task in gym.) made of quilt squares depicting scenes and slogans and situations from feminist culture (some were from Indigo Girls songs.). Hand over hand I went, along with other women, other ropes, all laughing and chanting. As I reached the top I was generously given a cool long jean skirt with some of the squares sewn (artfully ripped) on the pockets, and a peasant shirt to wear over my T-shirt. I dressed in my new clothes and hung out in this small, cramped eyrie of women shouting joyfully. There was a mirror and I paused to look in it and adjust my hair, which was in lovely curls and all blue. I found I was wearing the skirt backward, so I unbelted it and turned it around. Then I searched the messy dressertop for a lipstick sample and applied a little lipstick. There, I thought, I'm ready for the revolution.
After a few dream-convolutions, I found that the eyrie had become open-air, looking down on a plaza headed by a building with columns. Between the columns, out-of-sight but still audible, Bill Clinton was about to give a speech. Then somebody yelled something about Sam Seaborn for President, and everyone laughed indulgently.
Then either the dream changed or I woke up, I can't quite remember. Throughout there had been this vague sense of danger, but it was only peripheral, never in my direct line of sight, never completely crowding my immediate sense of being alone in a happy crowd and more or less content.
I'm turning 29 next week, and at times I'm not altogether sure I'm ready for the revolution. Not the feminist revolution, that's a bit too amorphous for me to think about, but my own revolution. This is the time when a cog rolls over and people begin to get serious about the business of living life. They search for a mission, they finish taking stock of who they are and begin to put their talents and energies to work. I've felt that impulse growing in me, interrupted now and again by the exigencies of merely surviving; it's still there in the background, quietly gathering force. I believe this is going to be a very interesting year.
Which sounds like the old curse -- may you live in interesting times -- but unfortunately I asked for it. Years ago I wished to live in the sort of times where choices were stark and awe-full: do I hide this Jew from the SS? Do I speak out against maltreatment of the elderly? I thought I would never see such times; I was wrong. My personal timeline seems to have intersected with the "interesting times" I should never have wished for. I have begun to feel fear, and I suspect that feeling will only recur. But my course, I believe, is set: to serve my creative gifts, and to hunger and thirst for justice.
If that is revolution, it is only an index of the times.
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