I woke up a bit before 4 a.m. this morning, got up and stumbled to the loo to dump the ballast. After which I crawled back into bed, read for a while, fell back to sleep until just shy of 8:30, when a dream woke me.
In general, I don't seem to remember much about my dreams, so the times one comes back to the waking world with me are occasions. Let me see if I can describe this one.
It's evening, toward the end of the year. I'm in a place that's not exactly a resort, not exactly a hotel, not exactly a fancy restaurant. Nice place –- made of stone and wood, with floors of flagstone. Not done up with the accouterment you sometimes see in places like that, bric-a-brac suggesting centuries of history. It felt newer than that, though not brand new. With the feel of a place that's been in operation for a some time.
The weather has turned genuinely cold, the kind of cold that signals winter's arrival, and the place is about to close down for the season this very evening -- after dinner, which had just commenced. Dinner takes place on a partially-roofed flagstone patio overlooking a valley and mountains. Everyone who's going to eat is out there, along with any staff. I'm inside, by myself, in a long, comfortable room where everyone out on the patio has left their coats and luggage spread around on the chairs. I'm there when the last of the diners and staff goes outside, so the room falls quiet around me. I remain there, thinking about something, standing quietly, unobtrusively, off in the corner of the room furthest away from the passageway to the patio. A man suddenly comes in from the patio, gleefully believing himself to be unobserved. He begins going through coats and bags. I approach him quietly, get the jump on him and hold him down. People began coming in from the patio as I hold the guy there, going to their bags, talking, paying no attention at all to me and this guy, though it's clear I'm restraining him. I'm looking around, watching them enter the room, chatting as they get ready to collect their belongings and leave, paying me absolutely no mind as I immobilize the thief who had started going through their things.
That's when I woke up.
I lay thinking about that story for a while, most of it still clear in my memory. Clear in the way memories can be, once lived. Until I rousted myself, headed toward the shower and started my day, quickly forgetting all about the dream. At some point -- coming out of the blue as I washed dishes, my thoughts off who knows where -- I realized what the story was about. And all I could do was smile 'cause the situation in the dream was a such a silly yet nicely drawn metaphorical representation of how some part of me apparently views a recent situation in this little life of mine.
I've gotta say: I love dreams. The ones I remember are always great stories –- complex, dynamic, wild narratives, often heading off in directions I never would have imagined, much less considered, if I had to sit down and try to write them. Full of powerful, vivid images, experiences, situations. Often hilarious -– if not in the moment then in retrospect. Great entertainment, put together just for me.
Every now and then I'll go through a period when they seem much closer to the surface, if you know what I mean, when I find myself remembering lots of dreams. Short periods I really enjoy.
I'd like it if that happened more often.
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I headed over to Barre again today – Montpelier's evil twin city – to do a bunch of errands. Seen along the way:
Wild Auto Body Repair
Soap Opera Coin Wash & Dry
A bulletin board in a complex of mostly small manufacturing companies featured the following two ads:
Highland Bagpipe Instructors Vermont Institute of Piping
Smith & Wesson Model 3000 20GA Slug Gun Nice condition. $225.00
And coming home, heading north on Route 14, about a mile out of East Montpelier, a roadside business (used cars/produce/eternal yard sale/misc.) had the following sign out by the road: