Dreams

I received a dream interpretation dictionary as a gift when I was eleven. It was nestled amongst other Christmas gifts, and inside my father's parents had signed their names and "Christmas 1999." I remained so fascinated by the volume that other the years the spine of it cracked and gave way to thick scars of broken binding. I used the book to decipher my frequent lucid dreams, as I was not--and never have been--one to write them down. Much like taking photos on vacation, keeping a scrapbook, or recording memories and thoughts in a journal, I prefer to guard my dreams in memory where only I can touch them.

As a child, I dreamt in vivid technicolor, soaring high definition images swirling through my mind and rising from my pillow-cradled head. I cannot remember when the frequency of these dreams started waning, though I have not lost my ability to recall dreams from long ago when triggered. A color. An object. A certain look or tone of voice...even deja vu itself can set me off to remembering an exact dream from years before.

In despite of all of this, I have only dreamt of my deceased father twice. Once he lead me through a dim house and I asked him what it was like where he was. He responded "It's great up here, it's so great!" The other occasion was the night before a trail race and in the dream he'd coaxed me into stopping running to eat a hamburger and I never finished. It is a slight understatement to say that the next day at the actual race, I was paranoid I wouldn't finish...Thanks Dad.

Curiously enough, I must confess that is my mother who is visited by my father the most. I cannot help but be saddened by this...I can't understand why it's her he visits. Perhaps I can rationalize it, but I can't rationalize the feelings behind my sadness.

She told me this evening that just one night ago she dreamt of visiting my dad in our old house, the house we lived in before they divorced. My stepdad had gone with her. Apparently the kitchen in the old house had been remodeled, and my obese father had metamorphosed into his slender self. He was crying. He said he was sorry for everything. My mom and stepdad consoled him in the dream.

* * *

I am a finder of patterns, a wielder of motifs, a lover of tropes. What are dreams and literature but an irrevocable fusion of the two?

* * *

My mom doesn't really read this blog. She didn't know, until tonight, about some of my previous postings this week about my own relationship to my father. I find it funny, eery even, that she dreamt of him a few days after I wrote about what I've held in.

Maybe my insinuation is too strong...maybe I believe a little too much in the idea that there is far more to our existence that what meets the eye, far too much mystery for us to rationalize away. And why ruin it?

* * *

Maybe my Dad is reading this blog, from wherever he is. And if he can't read it, maybe he is getting the message somehow anyway.

If he is, I hope he knows he's forgiven.