Dreams

 Tuesday, I sat on the cliff at the ocean and watched the wild waves and mused.

I find dreams enormously revealing. In fact I am quite good at analyzing the dreams of others, and a blog friend, sadly missed - who has gone into the vast stardust - and I exchanged our dreams at times as she also had the gift of dream insight.

Now, I'm on my own with my sometimes baffling dreams.

Recently, two nights in a row, in sleep, I lost my car and the pursuit of my car was fraught with difficulties and challenges. One night I could see it at the top of a cliff and tried to climb up but kept falling backwards. I had a huge Newfoundland dog and endeavoured to have her help me by towing me up the cliff to no avail as she kept falling too. I woke in despair, carless.

The next night I was in a familiar small town in Ireland which had a parking lot for shoppers and when I went back to the lot, my car was missing. I was told by a cop that I had the wrong parking lot, there were more parking lots, I had to check them. So I did, I kept wandering around, exhausted knowing I would never find it as I knew this town had only the one parking lot.

Dreams are utterly symbolic and tap into our subconscious deeply. I wrote about this dream in my journal as I knew it was powerful and I didn't want to forget all the details.

And then it all fell into place.

Recently I resigned from two pretty intense projects for many reasons. And now I am noticing I have lost bits of myself. I was changed in a way I couldn't define.

And then it hit me. I have lost the drive, the force, that has always informed me, made me, ME.

I need to find it and this is my challenge at the moment. I need purpose. 

I need to find my drive - my car.

A photo from 9 years ago in the town I loved so well.

Displacement

I had very strange dream last night where the theme was displacement. A series of problems cropped up and the answers were given to me by the many, past and present in my life, standing around me. We were on a cliff looking down at the strand below as the waves gently rolled in and out.

One of the many problems I had was having a baby and not knowing what to do with her and asking those around me for help. The answer came back: displacement

Another was the feeling of homelessness, I knew there was no home and never would be. Displacement.

Some of those surrounding me had long passed. And I knew this and it was OK.

As they all uttered this one word at me every time I shared my feelings or posed a question, I remember tuning them out and looking down at the strand, this long stretch of unlimited pristine sand, and thinking: I need to get down there. I need to make my own footprints, I need to place myself. Ill find my own answers to these complex questions.

I found it a powerful dream. My missing daughter's birthday is tomorrow. December is a fraught month for me. I despise all this Christmas cheer and massive consumerism. Somewhere along the way the message of quiet, peace and reflection was lost. Solstice helps. The coming of the Light and gratitude, the welcoming of another season of renewal.

I have a sense of unease, not unlike the theme of Displacement. Home is an internal feeling I seem to have lost.

My dream needs no intense analysis.

Displacement is a theme running loud and clear through my entire family of origin.

Do any of you out there have a strong, anchored feeling of "place"?

Life Lessons from Knitting

Knitting has taught me so much about life. I'm currently working on an afghan (sofa blanket) for a dear friend who has been so good to me.

The other day I discovered an error in it and I'm a little OCD when it comes to knitting so I immediately ripped down the four stitches to the error, corrected the problem and moved on. Not so fast. For I soon discovered that two stitches had gone AWOL.

There was nothing for it but to rip down all the rows and then reknit the entire problematic row again. And the two missing stitches magically reappeared with innocent faces on them.

Which put me in mind of relationships, how some are irreparable – they can't be patched up and oftentimes they have to be taken right down to the foundation and assessed to see if they can be rebuilt. Challenging.

Sometimes a design on paper can be beautiful but in practical application can be a disaster. All the kinks have to be ironed out, often with a practice run. It's far better to find out early in the game if something's not going to work than to invest time, effort and dreams into a project that is destined to fail.

It is best to concentrate on the project at hand. At times, my mind drifts off to the next project which is always more exciting than the one in my hands and that's where I make mistakes, cabling (twisting) the pattern the wrong way, forgetting plain rows and purling like a mad thing, forgetting to insert a key element like a heart or a piece of lacework.

Before, I would tell you that knitting is nothing, anybody can do it. Today I recognise, like all creative endeavours, it is something that comes from my heart, my soul, my spirit. It nurtures me, slows me down.

As I knit, I think, with love, of the people I am knitting for. A gift of time and memories as I run the needles back and forth. Most of the projects I complete and gift take well over 100 hours of my time around the rest of the busy-ness of my life. I weave in the sounds of birds, the ocean, the blue sky, the fire, people who bide with me a while and stroke the knitting and yes, always, my hopes and dreams for the giftee.

For I've only ever knitted for people I love.

Calm

I give terrific dream analysis though often I find it impossible to decipher my own. This one I did and it still resonates with me days later.

In the dream I was in a room - they're always interesting these rooms, bear no relation to any dwelling I've ever lived in or been in, though sometimes there's a faint familiarity.

At the outset I tell you I don't believe in any form of afterlife and have written extensively about my god-free life so I don't attach any kind of hereafter messages to any dreams I have about dead people.

So this dream: I was housekeeping in this large white room, surrounded by cleaning utensils. I don't housekeep in real life. I keep things sanitary and hygienic but heavy cleaning is Emma's job. So here I am sitting on the floor in this room staring at a vacuum cleaner, wondering about nozzles and power cords when I hear a cough. And I look up and at the doorway is my mother and she has a doll, infant sized, over her shoulder and she's patting it and pointing at it with her other hand. She's silent but insistent I look at it. I get up off the floor, away from the furniture polish and bottles of cleaner and start to walk over to her very slowly, puzzled, saying "Mum, Mum?" over and over. She's smiling but her hands keep moving in the same pattern.

And I wake up suddenly and I'm crying so hard in my loss and grief that it takes me about five minutes to stop and I, the dream expert, breathe in some calm and analyze.

Everyone appearing in a dream is just another aspect of ourselves. And for once, this one's clear as a bell

I can fooster my way round, distracted by the baubles of life and neglect my doll, my creative spirit which needs stroking and care and attention.

And all the promises I made to myself a few months ago about entering more competitions, writing new material, were sucked away by other distractions, some major like the writing workshops I'm giving, others minor like projects in my town and, lawd, editing, editing and editing an anthology (don't ask, unpaid work more's the pity, I was sucked in, my own fault).

So yeah, time to clean house for sure and concentrate on, well, my bliss.

Carol Doesn't Say Goodbye

I wrote about her a while back. Here. Just over 4 years ago. Carol* moved away to the city and we stayed in sporadic touch. She finally met the man of her dreams she told me only a week ago. And sent a picture.

And then, her daughter, who gave birth to Carol's first grandchild a few months ago, messages me today that Carol took her own life yesterday.
I can only conclude that the latest knight in shining armour had clay feet too. Or Carol just gave up on her dream.

After my initial shock and a welter of tears, I am still baffled. Carol was beautiful in an exotic way. Dainty. Petite. Her childhood was one of the worst I'd ever heard of, full of foster homes and abusive men. She lost a brother she was very close to about 5 years ago and told me she could never get over it. He was her pillar of strength.

I met some of the men she was involved with but not the latest. I was not impressed with any of them for a variety of reasons.

Over the years, I got to know Carol at a deep level and understood far too well her motivation in wanting a safe life with her very own fellah and security. Security was important to her as she'd never, ever had it in her entire life.

I don't think she really understood what it meant. Apart from the fairytales depicted on television. I had suggested a few times that the only security she could ever find and hang on to was the security residing within herself.

I weep tonight for all the Carols out there.

And for all the "if-onlys" of life.


*a pseudonym

Rearview Mirror

This kitchen towel and dishcloths are on their way to a special friend right now.

I heard an expression a long time ago which helps me today.

"It's OK to glance in the rearview mirror once in a while but don't stare or you'll miss the view in front of you."

Something like that.

And you know what?

It's a wonderful piece of advice.

Plus: running out of time - at my age, you just don't know how much of it is left.

So no staring back anymore.

I stay where my hands are and dream up new dreams, plan for the future, have a happy in every day (or two or three) and practice mindfulness and kindfulness a couple of times during the 24.

And tired. I try not to get tired. It does nasty things to my brain.

Nightwalker

A long time ago, in a city called Toronto a boyfriend and I would prowl the city on weekends late at night. Walk the boardwalk, sit in all night cafes, speculate on the lives of shift-workers, get to see people and images we wouldn't normally see and write about them. We called ourselves the Nightwalkers.

A part of me is still drawn to that night life. Out here on the Edge I'm up late. Well, that's wrong. I laid down on the couch at around 9pm and awoke after an, ahem, "short" nap. You know those naps. I awoke at 2am in a terrible state as a friend and I had been securing Liam Neeson in a fool proof cell (he kept breaking out)because he had been bombing carousels full of children. As we were locking him up behind three steel doors, his power saw was hacking through the last door. Such are the ways of some of my dreams nightmares. Others involve kittens and rainbows.

Anyway, here I am in the middle of the night, writing away. The world is quiet, the rain has stopped and the sea is like a mirror. No FB friends are out and about in the cyber world.

All is well.

Dreams

I analyze dreams. I'm pretty good at it. Yonks ago I took a course.

My dreams lately have been of despair. Of losing my voice. Of all those I hold dear turning their backs and darkening a bright room with heavy curtains. Très évident, you might say. And I would agree.

My subconscious working things out, of course. So I awake and lie there and fill my head with good thoughts. I sort them out and obliterate the lingering smothering of the others. Because I know, deep down, they can kill me. Death by a thousand cuts.

Because everything else? Brings me joy. And my mind is such that it can let all that shunning hatred coming at me stifle what is good and kind and fulfilling in my life.

And I'm a recovered addict too, so the siren calls of substances can be highly seductive. So I sail my own wee boat away from those lying lullabies.

And I keep the photos of the 3 loved ones I lost in the past 3 months nearby. And remember their words of unconditional support.

To remind me to live my life as if each day is my last.

As it well might be.

Birthing the Dream

Sunset from the Tigeen

If you're a regular reader you'll remember this recent post.

And when you do a start-up, you never know, do you? Well I was beside myself today when I got my first booking for the Tigeen: An American writer-in-residence who wants to spend 2 days in my wee cabin and tour the Avalon before heading off to her summer position about 400K from here.

I am so chuffed at how my friends have gathered around with suggestions, promotions and downright support and accolades about the Tigeen to anyone who will listen to them. For instance, tonight the author sister of a good friend is promoting it in a broadcast to her connections.

Now, I'm holding my horses, this may be the only booking. But hell, isn't it so very lovely when this dream, after such a long incubation, has become so very much ALIVE?

This says it all, right?

I find it hard to find the words sometimes. Those who know me would laugh. I am never at a loss for words. But sometimes my emotions overwhelm me when my dreams come true. Like writing and directing and touring my play. And writing for newspapers and magazines. And having my photos on published calendars. I could go on. Today was one of those days. I am still in shock that I completed 10 miles. 10 Miles.

I had started out this particular journey just trailing along the shore with the dog. Then extending my range. Slowly but surely. Varying it. Doing some hill work.

All culminating in today.

Two of my friends showed up in the final mile and hand-maidened me in to the Finish Line. That meant the world to me. And then we all cried. And cried. Sometimes tears without words are enough.

Thanks for all the good wishes and virtual support out there on the interwebz. And to those of you who are also my FB friends.

Namaste.

And then we die.

I think: why are we all so afraid of letting people in? Telling the truth? Risking our feelings, our fears? Sticking it all out there? Helping each other understand. And care. For that is true intimacy.

Most people are shut down, terrified of someone getting in there. Afraid to express joy or sadness. Fear of what exactly?

I had a long conversation with someone tonight. We are not afraid to express our troubles, our thoughts, our fears to each other. And we did. We talked about the fear of making decisions. The terror we feel when loved ones suffer in self-imposed isolation. The fear of letting go. Looking into the void. Contemplating the unknown. We had each let go of businesses recently and find other issues surrounding those decisions grabbing us by the throat. How to stand firm. In his case, how to say no to the new owners leaning on him and being disrespectful. In my case a few issues around the financial impact of my particular revenue stream vanishing. Fear of the unknown again. Because there's no impact yet. So what use is my worrying and anticipating?

It's good to air the inner laundry, to hang it all out and begin to laugh even. An old adage I heard once was if you walk into a room of trusted friends and everyone agrees to share and exchange their troubles, at the end of the evening you gladly pick up your own again and walk out of the room feeling grateful.

What triggered this odd wee post? I have a strong desire to heal relationships that have gone sideways. No idea why they've gone that way. All I know is that most people don't reveal their inners: their hurts and disappointments or feelings of rejection, their love.

I had the oddest dream last night. Where I was sitting in my childhood home around the dining room table in the gloaming with the family and I lit many candles to 'light the darkness' as I explained to my father. Very calmly, he told me to leave the room, that I was banished from the table. I sat down at the piano in the front room and played some Mozart and felt overwhelmingly happy. And then I woke up.

And I found the dream rather profound on many, many levels.

A sense of urgency is good. A sense of our time here being so finite. And unfinished business is baggage I don't need.

Make some heavy decisions, I sez to myself. Risk, I sez. Action plan, I sez. Now, I sez.

And myself listened.

Dreams

Topsail Beach, yesterday. October!!!
 

I arrived home last night to a lineup of phone messages. One friend has been trying to get hold of me for days. A lot has been happening in her family of origin in Dublin, illness, shifts in care for an elderly mother, family dynamics excluding her periodically ("the emigrant").

One can lose sight of our dreams when troubles like these invade. Her dreams have been on hold for a while. I fear they might be buried. Avalanches of concern can take over our lives if we allow them to. And often there is nothing we can do about any of it. But still, it clogs up the arteries of existence, makes it all a trial. I heard her out. It took a while. We remain stagnant in such situations. Life comes to a halt. Daily life is a trudgery of a drudgery. Our imaginations park at the stop signs. She mentioned anniversaries of the friends that have passed before us. And another friend of hers who has 6 brain tumours mestastasised from the lungs (yeah, a life-long smoker). Life does become this when we are burdened. Death nodding at us from every dark corner.

She wound down and asked me about my life, Ireland, the time with the family in West Cork. Before, I would have toned it down a little. To fit in with her bleak landscape. But I didn't. My end of the conversation was celebratory, seizing the days past and present, wringing the juice out of life, affirming my decision to say goodbye to the day job, telling her that if it didn't work out financially, bankruptcy was always an option, even at my age, so maybe the poor house would loom, but you know, the Hemlock Society is a definite possibility if that happened. Meanwhile I would do my very best to work as a full-time writer with no distractions at all. I have many cans of tuna in my cupboard and a freezer full of berries and homemade soups and stews.

Yeah, she responded, the time is now. Everything else is a distraction. I feel a bit better. I need to get on with my own dreams.

And last night? I dreamed of a baby, swaddled in handknit blankets who had been given in to my care. And I showed this tiny baby the world. Wow!

And this may be the last post for a week or so. I am heading off to a Writers' Conference. Just like a real writer.

I still can't believe it. Keep your fingers crossed for me. And yeah, I'll be reading publicly. And yeah, I'm working one on one with a world famous writer.

And finally - don't be one of the 99% who die with their music locked within them. Take the first tiny step today.

Start with The Dream Book.

And Out The Other Side

Amazing possibilities are out the other side when I suit up and show up.

We have this amazing theatre troupe I've written about and a pretty damn good play. So everyone says. For how can I speak of it, all the characters are dear to me and spring from my fertile imagination. I get to love my characters, they are my babies. And the brilliant cast makes them even more real. And people ask me about them.

"So what happened to Phelim," they ask. And I am flattered. He has become real to them too.

And for years, many times, I drive by this place, a very old church, oblong. Tall and sleek-ed. Lovely old windows. White and blue. And another dream takes hold. And I think, ridiculous. No. This could never be.

And a friend has the dream too. Independently. And we find out the building is for sale. For a song and some TLC. And we go there today. And say to each other as we look around this gorgeous place, key trembling in our hands.

"This is where the box office is. This is where the washroom will go. This is where the dressing rooms can be built on."

And maybe, just maybe, our theatre, our very own theatre will be birthed. Yes, overlooking the ocean. You are all invited to the premier performance. We counted. It will seat 90. Comfortably. How perfect a dream is this?

Wirestrung

There I was, literally hamstrung by wires, around my stomach, across my chest, around my upper arms, not to the point of pain, but to a strong restriction in movement.

I was too embarrassed to ask anyone to get a pincers and to lift my shirt and release me from them. I knew I had to do it myself without any tools.

Meanwhile, I participated in life as best I could. I had a big blue handbag and inside the bag was my wallet and my change purse and they rattled around loosely in the bag which could have held a lot more stuff.

I found another handbag in a washroom that was crammed with all kinds of things: colourful scarves, jewellery, bling, money, camera, books, netbook, writing pads, colourful pencils and pens so I took it and hoped to find the owner but I was baffled as to where I would put up a notice and what information I would release. Red handbag found? There was no I.D. Anywhere on it. Anyone could claim it.

I went off to a family dinner in a very loud restaurant where everyone had shown up, from the tiniest baby to my old uncle of 95 (who died last week). The noise was deafening. I tried to find the owner of the red bag until someone said to me I was being foolish, the red bag had always been mine but I had misplaced it and then bought the blue one to replace it but was never happy with it. I sat in a big comfy chair and started working away (quite discreetly) on my wires which were intertwined but quite loose once the first one was untangled. I knew the one that was tied at my back would be a hard one to release but I rubbed up against the back of the armchair and worked away at loosening it.

It finally released and I slowly was able to unpeel all the wires from my body. I twisted them into a huge ball and held them out.

“Look,” I said, “I've finally managed it. And all by myself!”

And then I woke up.

I have learned more about myself and my current blahs from last night's dream than any therapy or textbook could possibly teach me.

Dreamscape

(The best dream song ever from Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe in which I played a part, many, many moons ago.)

Some say they never dream. But they do. They just can't remember them when they wake up. It is through our dreams we get to work out the problems of our lives, or attempt to understand our pasts.

I'm one of those who has dreams that are better than movies. And sometimes when I'm truly lucky, I get to fly in them, over houses and mountains and oceans. I write them down when the mood strikes me. Like now. I've alway dreamed in full spectrum technicolour (some dream in black and white, I understand)and there is always an interesting plotline.

For instance, last night I dreamed I was in this ancient marketplace in France but the entrances and exits were designed for dwarves so if you wanted to leave the market you had to starve yourself if you were in anyway plump so you could slide under the doorways on your back to get out. I found myself comforting some of the tourists who were there including French people from the town itself (who should have known better, n'est pas?)who didn't have any English but understood mine when I told them to diet so they could get out.

Once you got outside into this mediaeval town all the roads were very narrow and populated by carts pulled by tiny men going at outrageous speeds so that one had to press oneself into doorways to avoid being mowed down.

It turned out I was selling silk ribbons, sold by the foot (I had explicit instructions)and in between selling them I was to go to my brother's house and weave mats out of them for a bathroom which was 100 yards long and could take me a lifetime.

I didn't seem to mind this onerous task as he told me I was also his bathroom tester to make sure the showerheads and jacuzzis worked properly, also a big job as when we counted up his bathrooms he had 52. Yeah, one for every week of the year.

I had a dear friend, a Jungian analyst, who moved to Scotland some years ago. He would analyze my dreams and always revealed a startling insight into my psyche.

I wonder what he'd make of the latest one.

My Rules of Life---Part Eight

The Dream Book

I thought to wind the series up with this post. I could add a lot more of my ‘rules' but won’t for the sake of brevity.

Interestingly enough, I’ve been receiving a few private emails on this series and I’m only too happy to offer a compassionate ear and a sharing of my own life story. I never deem to give advice as everyone’s journey is so different and it’s always a question of finding one’s own way through life with the answers rolling in of their own accord.

At least that’s how it was for me.

I call them the 2 X 4’s of life – and I’ve been thwacked over the head by them on more than one occasion. There’s nothing like pain to grab my attention and force me to change – my outlook, attitude and circumstances.

I started to write an observation book one time on this whole concept of clinging – whether it is to a person, a place, or stuff. Or pre-conceived ideas. I’ve seen the clinger cling so tight to the ‘clingee’ that it either literally or metaphorically explodes. I’ve seen people stay in unhappy partnerships and heard both sides of the reasons. Which don’t amount to a hill of beans really but involve keeping him or her ‘happy’ or ‘secure’ while the other partner says the same thing. And there you have it – two desperately unhappy people clinging for dear life to the false concept of each other’s happiness until the whole thing implodes, as it inevitably does.

I had a dear friend clinging to her house as it represented the only security she had. She couldn’t afford to take a holiday or go to the theatre as any spare change went to paying down the mortgage. Then her house caught fire with the insurance company paying for the fortune in repairs less the deductible. This was followed within a year by the house being flooded. All the new ceramic tiles peeled off the walls and the floors like yesterday’s newspaper.

At this point she said f*** it. I’m just going to have a good time. And she did. And she’s never been happier.

In my time I clung to dreadful jobs and desperate relationships, friends who betrayed me and poor real estate choices. I would take care of you long before I would take care of me. I slowly learned that life was not about clinging to stuff but about realizing dreams. And the amazing thing was that the dreams didn't have to cost much materially and most were actually free.

About fifteen years ago I heard of the concept of The Dream Book. One buys a large blank journal and proceeds to go through it all page by page, each page headed with a dream. No matter how silly, infantile or hopeless seeming.

I felt a little foolish, taking all those pages and listing a dream on each one, some were childish, some were what I thought impossible.

Part of the process is on the first day of each month I go through each and every single dream and if there has been an effort to achieve even a minuscule part of that dream I write it down. It reinforces my belief that anything, literally anything can happen to make these private ephemeral thoughts come closer to a reality.

For instance, one of my pages said “Write”. I hadn’t written anything apart from my journal since high school.

I followed this with what I had written, where I had submitted it and then my first publication about ten years ago as a columnist in an Irish magazine.

Then my short story collection was picked up by a publisher, my cards were ready for sale, I had a win in a recent Irish poetry competition and a recent request from a new paper here to do a column for them. I write all these things down on the page to reinforce the power of the dream once it gets focussed on every month and then making room for it to move into my life.

Another page said “Open Up Kitchen”. I’d always had these tiny hemmed in kitchens and I love to cook. So I saved my money and a couple of years before I sold the Toronto house I had a wall taken down to open up the kitchen. And one of the first jobs I had done in this old house was to, yes: you guessed it, take down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. It’s symptomatic of opening up my life.

You get the idea. I’ve a hundred dreams (for now) in all stages of development and on a bad day I can look inside the book and realize, hey, there is some magic after all, I did run that marathon in my fifties!