I dreamed this the week we workshopped pieces about where our names come from. "Laura" comes from the laurel wreath, signifying victory.

Last week I had a dream that I was sitting on a hill, looking over the neighborhood where I grew up.  I was gesticulating wildly, eloquently explaining details of my childhood to whoever I was sitting with, somebody who I do not think found this subject particularly interesting.  I remember telling them, trying to grasp their attention again, "Most people can't understand."  They heard, but they still weren't listening.

I ran down the hill to meet my Dad and his perfect brothers who, in real life, all have perfect perfect sons, athletic and studying at, you guessed it, perfect places like Princeton (those Westman boys grew up in that big white house, conveniently, perfectly ordered, the number 1234 on the block).  We were all watching some weird show in a big pool of water, something you might see at Sea World, and when we were invited to join in, we all dove in headfirst.  It was a grand spectacle:  people zooming around underwater to jostle it all up and give us the illusion that we were flying through the water.  It wasn't officially a competition, but someone told me that I won it!  And they gave me roses!  Long-stemmed, beautiful red roses that hadn't opened yet; the kind you always want to get on your birthday, or after a performance, or maybe on Valentine's Day if you ever actually have someone of the variety that might give you roses on a Valentine's Day and isn't your mother or your kindhearted roommate.

I was elated, albeit a little confused.  But the roses fell in the water and got all turned up and sideways and bustled around with the rest of us.  Someone drove the long stems through my feet toward the ground, right through the tops of my feet.  My feet: one through the left, one through the right, so that the buds were looking up at me, blooming.  Smiling almost; and as I looked down at them I could see that the defiant tattoo on top of my right foot was not even there.  How was I supposed to take any steps?  To move at all?

And everyone was really proud of me, like it was supposed to happen that way!  Like it just happened to everybody! The tips of the thorny stems poked through just enough to touch the ground beneath my bare feet. Blood speckled the concrete as I tried to walk, and I winced at every step.  I tried to smile.  One foot in front of the other, I followed them as they left the area and headed for the city.

Even though I desperately wanted to, I couldn't take the roses out until I got home; this was one of those silly dream-rules that you simply must accept as a captive audience member and awkward participant in your own subconscious.  Somehow I also knew the whole time that I might never get "home," whatever that meant, which just made me even sadder.  And yet I accepted.  They all kept walking, either because they didn't notice, or they thought I would just catch up soon.  

I tried to follow my dad and my uncles, who met up with men and women I recognized as teachers from my past.  They beckoned, and I did my best to hobble along quietly behind them, but I had to keep stopping because of the pain.  I wanted to put band-aids on my feet, but I didn't have any and didn't want to slow anyone down to ask. I didn't know where they were going or what they wanted from me.

And I didn't call out to ask them to wait.

I ran up a nonexistent hill on Virginia Avenue, near where I lived once (that year of triumph and disaster that still comes back to me in dreams), a thin trail of scarlet blood behind me on the pavement.  There was a series of increasingly more difficult obstacles to overcome as I followed them up, up, up toward my family and I stepped out a window and -- finally!  There they were! I had caught up!

They were out on an extremely narrow ledge overlooking some romantic version of Chicago.  I didn't think I could manage to balance on the ledge with them, especially with those awful roses speared through my feet.   I was scared I would fall, anyway.

The moon was shining over the cityscape below, reflected with clouds in the lake - what a beautiful world sprawled out in front of us.  The first breezes of summer called to me.  I wanted to release myself into the air and let all my happiness carry me over the water all the way home and I closed my eyes and in my brain then there were no swords through my feet and I was swimming through the sky . . .  but I couldn't find the happiness and I was scared and I was in so much pain. As I was trying to decide what to do, my plastic bag (with shoes and clothes) fell away, below.  I watched it tumble out of sight, my shoes hitting open windows on their way to the ground that I could not see.  

I didn't know whether to go after it or follow the Westmans or crawl back inside, and the roses burned me from beneath my bare feet.  And then my family stopped moving forward - and my uncle Dan looked me in the face and said, it's okay Laura, we're coming back in.

I dream in meta-fiction these days

Last night I had a dream that we traditionally had an open community forum instead of just writing letters to the editor about something here in Washington, DC. This week, I had letters prepared about various things, like the importance of The Vagina Monologues (and asking for more funding and more support on campus for them), the power of a low-carb diet and a request to hold an open Q&A to increase awareness, the push for increased dialogue about many things on campus, and a list of true statements to say to my friend Harry, among other topics generally sensitive to me, that my twenty one year old self would assertively discuss.

When I was about to begin reading my written (and rather eloquently written, I might add) arguments, suddenly a flood of people arrived, as if on the Vern Express (late, as usual), like they had all gotten on the same bus due to a late metro train and come just in time. People from my old life, people I knew in high school, in middle school, people I thought I was in love with at some point, people who I thought were mean, people who I thought were too cool, people who I would be bashful to be myself in front of until Alice Turner taught me that I'm just fine the way my brain is and that I am worthwhile; people who never thought of me as anything else other than "nice" and "Elissa's friend." There were people I might always have a funny bond with, because we tried things together (one, arriving with his current girlfriend to attend the forum, came down the escalator and, seeing me, turned and took my hand), coming in with teachers from their high schools and their favorite college professors.

They all walked past me and my classmates to gather in the back of the room, ordering beverages and seating themselves comfortably. Nervous -but mostly excited - I waited for the microphone to be passed to me, so I could give my list of assertions and grievances. And maybe all those people, who - to be honest, probably hadn't thought much about me since we had last seen each other - I always thought had the wrong idea about who I was, and I know it wasn't that important because we all change and evolve, and naturally I couldn't have been myself around them before - but they probably didn't notice -

and all those people, I was finally about to show them what I believed in and who I was. I watched as, one by one, my classmates passed the microphone from person to person, saying something unimportant like "I think Gelman Library should be open longer," or "Why can't we take less than three science credits for our B.A. in a social science?" or "Has anyone seen my Blackberry?" until people stopped listening so intently. The noise level in the back of the room, filled with people from Emerson and from North Carolina and from all over, was rising uncomfortably.

As casual conversation started overcoming the miked college students, the ordered seating in the back became more and more jumbled and the whole ordeal seemed like a poorly organized party as everybody stopped listening to each other. Finally I was next in line to speak, and I uncrumpled the sheets of paper that I had carefully scribbled all over, flattening them against my knee in anticipation.

Despite the diminishing audience, my fellow speakers kept grabbing the microphone from each other to speak. I didn't know any of them very well, and they were very noisy.

I got nervous and I didn't reach for the mike, though it was clear that nobody was going to just hand it to me. And since my audience had started disrespectfully milling around, I accepted the double futility of the action. I walked up the escalator and out the door to meditate. There was grass outside, spilling over a large cliff. It was lonesome, but the view of the ocean was spectacular.

Lucy said, write about feeling old, but not being old.
I kick off my walking shoes and sit down with a pen.

Feeling Old and Not Being Old:
It feels like wearing two pairs of socks in June.
It feels like looking out over your ocean, shiny and markedly apprehensive
you watch your Walrus and your Carpenter beckon you forth to eat.
It feels like surveying a map of your spacetime
and seeing your sixyearsold shame break bread with your fortyyearsold fear
and inevitably you are paralyzed in present.

It feels like wearing a backpack filled with stones
little laughter pebbles falling to the bottom through the cracks of the heart break rocks bundled
worn smooth from nervous touchings
time-distorts
and your mother saying, Sweetie, hi.
Your father asking, can I carry it up the stairs for you?

It feels like automatically saying No Thanks, since you are used to doing things for yourself these days.
It feels like knowing it will all still be waiting upstairs after dinner no matter how much you eat this time, the backpack heavy-sad.

It feels like wanting to shed that itchy itchy skin already but it just hasn't finished growing all the way.

It feels like seeing your face in photos of your mother from back when.
It feels like seeing your face in photos of your mother not yet taken,
it feels like always eating leftovers microwaved too long.

It feels like the globe spinning time dilation slow
a fruitless push against the head wind;
A glance at your wrist and into the air.