Lazy Saturday

Saturday and woke up late. The alarm played slow marimbas for me at seven; I got up and moved about, then lay back down again to listen to some music. Instead, dropped off again and had strange dreams. It was something that has been recurrent lately, thematically anyway; I was somehow involved in checking in to a new dormitory room at a college somewhere. I recall something about problems with the locks on the doors – someone had broken in to my room and filled the toilet and the sink with bottles of some drug – I think it was Tylenol, but I can't be sure. At some point also, I was flying at a low altitude as someone looked on and I was explaining that I had to practice because I hadn't flown in quite a while. Then I was in a remote place, some kind of loading dock. I said "I'm lost – I don't know where I am." Then I found myself on my knees polishing a boat or surfboard. Someone handed me a brush, and when I saw that it was Laura, and she was praising how glossy I'd made the board. It was black like obsidian and very shiny. We talked for a while like old friends, and then I wandered off. It was very dark, and where I thought the road should be, there were instead thick woods. I walked further down the trail and eventually came out into what looked like a combination of a mall and an industrial park. There were two people standing in work clothes there. I told them I was lost and the woman laughed saying "Mass Ave. is right there!" I looked up, relieved to see a sign reading "Massachusetts Avenue". Then I asked the woman how far it was to Boston proper, and her companion answered "about forty five minutes" indicating the direction. I asked if there was bus service, and he said there was, and pointed across the street where a bus was just pulling in. I remember thinking that I'd have to figure out, once I was on the bus, what the transfer points were. When I crossed the street to get on the bus, I found that the bus was no longer there, but there was a station selling tickets. Just as I was about to move to the front of the line, I woke up.

Inception got one thing right - when DiCaprio's character says that you never remember the beginning of a dream – you always start someplace in the middle of the action. I wonder whether that is because the dream memory is only partial – or whether the dreams actually begin midstream. I do remember dreams though in the past where the beginning of the dream was waking up in a bed. I wandered in the dream world, unaware that I had woken up someplace other than the world I know. I followed routines that were clearly established – no hesitation, no questioning why I needed to follow the routine. Shower, shave, dress, go to kitchen, kiss wife, eat breakfast, go to work in the field. Later in the dream, I came home after working in the field, kissed the kids, had dinner, showered, went to bed with my wife, made love to her. I Woke up after going to sleep there, disappointed to find myself alone. That dream – was that the whole memory, or had I actually dreamed days before and after the events that I can remember. Was that first remembered moment waking up part of a longer dream? The oddest thing about that dream is that I never felt the disjointedness I usually do when I am dreaming, the oh gosh I have no idea how I got there why I'm doing this, I know that person but I don't know how quality. It was laid out factually – a day in the life, just not the life I know. I had other dreams in that place too – I don't know how many. I know that there were lots of fields that needed work, and I also know that the fields belonged to me. That much I know for certain. I called my wife by name in the dreams but when I woke up, I couldn't remember her name, or mine. In the dreams I was thinner, taller, handsomer. Blonde with a bushy beard. In fact there was a time when it seemed that I was actually leading two lives, and at one point I remember thinking that this side was actually the dream, and that it wasn't a very pleasant one. I more recent years I haven't remembered dreams as regularly as I did back then. I often wonder whether some of the dreams that I don't remember are dreams of being that man in that place with that wife. An old girlfriend suggested that they might be a past life memory but that doesn't seem likely. The place seemed very real, but it also didn't seem like I was in the past. The time in that dream seemed to be my time, and although the setting was different from my own life, the world seemed very much my own world, in that the gadgets, cars, even thoughts I had as this other person, were all things I can recognize. It was the modern world as I know it in waking life; I was just in a rural setting, living the pleasant life of a farmer.

The sky this morning redefined blue. I looked out the window and was entirely startled by its purity. It has since clouded up but that sapphire quality us still there, only in patches.

I was planning to use the trimmer to start cutting down the tall grass this morning, but got waylaid by my own indolence.

Everyone here is dressed for vacation – shorts, tees, sandals, the clothes I wear every day. Since it's a weekend there are more kids around, and it's noisy. Behind me there is a man with a laptop on his table, who is tying balloon animals for the kids. Strange – I looked up, and there is a kid, maybe eight or nine years old in a soccer uniform, staring at me. It's as if he's never seen a bald guy typing on a computer before. Even when I look back at him, even when I grimace, he doesn't look away, just stares as if at a fascinating bird in the zoo. Outside the wind whips the mesquite trees. I'm on level with the people going through the drive-thru, and every once in a while I'll look up to catch one of them looking at me. Usually they smile shyly and look away when I catch them. The kid isn't staring anymore. He's been joined, apparently by his parents and his little sister, and the girl is now occupying his attention. The guy behind me slipped, and his huge balloon construction hit me on the shoulder. Kids eating voraciously. Behind me and off to the left a woman in a plaid top is gesticulating wildly, trying to make a point of some kind. Her husband is shaking his head as if in agreement. The little girl with them has just put a French fry up each nostril and now she is banging on her mother's shoulder, demanding to be notices.

It looks like the rush hour is hitting its stride. The line isn't long, but it's constantly replenishing and there is a constant stream of automobiles going by the drive-in window. It's amusing to watch their hands as they pass, trying simultaneously to drive and to get the money ready, even to juggle a coupon into the mix. One guy careened wildly to the right, wheels over the curb, and now he's trying to right himself. The woman in purple is pumping her right foot as if nervous. She looks up and I have to translate what I see when she smiles, because she is wearing braces and I really don't expect to see them on someone as old as she is. When I was a kid, only kids got braces.

Thinking about braces, my tongue finds the ragged line of my lower teeth. I had braces too – they were on for two years, and when I was done with the braces, I got a retainer for the top teeth. We moved overseas before I could get the retainer for the lower teeth and since military health didn't include pre-existing dental work, my parents opted not to get the retainer and within a year, the lower teeth had reverted to the way they are now.

The name on the fat kid's jersey is Bland. I knew a man named Bland once. We worked together as janitors in a catholic high school. I remember Eva there too, the three of us cleaning up bathrooms after tampon fights and mopping buffing waxing floors. Later I worked for another janitorial company in a large office building where they designed engines and motors. I used to love going in there at night and looking at the discarded blueprints in the trash bins.

I used to love Waukesha at this time of year.

In early September the days were still warm, and there was seldom any rain. I'd sit out in the grass between the campus buildings to study, or just to stare at the clouds. I still do stare at clouds now and then. Different configurations will remind me of different seasons, different places, and different people. Looking at clouds is like going into a time machine and moving, back and forth, back and forth.

Now the traffic is picking up on the highway. The left turn lane is full, but cars are breezing by in the right lane. Now the light has changed and the turners are moving too. The lane cleared out. The yellow pickup looks like a scene from "the grapes of wrath" with what appears to be an entire household of furniture in the back. Tied up haphazardly, it looks as if the bed may fall out if they hit a bump. Little blue cooper mini. A girl with a ponytail drives, "We heart U" written in soap on the window. The soccer team is still savagely murdering its hamburgers. Two fisted drinker at the counter alternately sipping from a smoothie and a soda until his mother slaps him in the back of the head saying "that's mine" and he gives her the smoothie. The banners and ads are like a slap in the face. Everywhere you look there is an order to buy something. Look out the window and see buildings, each one looking like a massive logo, Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Burger King, Sutherlands, Lowes. Ad after ad after ad. They make the street signs and warnings look paltry and weak by comparison. Too much study of Marshall McLuhan and pop art. Everything I see is branding or salesmanship. Buy me, visit me, eat me, put me in your car, your computer, your backpack. No matter that you already have everything, get more, get more. She has one hand on the wheel, with the other counts bills – three fivers by my count, gray Nissan Altima.