lucyoncolorado

In which I try to navigate an Asia water freeway and then run late to a meeting with my family...

I'm standing and holding an innertube around my waist, trying to merge on to a river freeway. There are two sections of the waterway with a rock wall median in between. The one I'm trying to enter is flowing from my left to my right, and the other is flowing in the opposite direction. I'm poised at the chute, and the water is rushing by me. I'm looking to my left at the white water, waiting until there is a lull to jump in. The timing will have to be just right because I want to get up on the rock median quickly after entering the water so that I can u-turn and head the opposite direction. If I miss my exit, I'll have to take the river all the way into town.

I take a deep breath and then jump. The waves start pummeling me and the current is pulling me fast. I'm grasping the innertube to keep my head up and kicking my legs furiously to move me towards the wall. I lose my flip flops in the water. But I can't make it. I come frustratingly close to the median. I see others standing on safely on the dry rock. They look down at me passively. I reach out and rake my fingers along the wall as I pass by. It's cold and smooth and I have nothing to grip, but I fling myself at it anyway in a desperate attempt to pull myself up. In reaching up at the wall, I let go of the innertube and it slips off my legs. Then I slip away down the river myself.

I float along for a few more minutes until the river calms, then I come to a low section of the rock median. A thin Indian laborer with a pencil mustache and wearing only a dhoti motions at me from the wall. I reach up and we grasp each others' arms just above the wrist. He pulls me up, and I notice the musculature of his workers' arms. His wife is nearby with plastic bucket of rocks on her head. They are the median builders. There are shards of broken bottles cemented into most of the wall to keep stragglers from exiting at places like this. The next official exit is in the city central.

"Where is your innertube? Why are you barefoot?" The laborer asks me. I explain that I tried to catch the last exit up and let go of the tub in the process. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head in disapproval. I ask if there is any way I can jump in to the other side so that I can get home. He points over the edge and I see that there is a long drop off to get into the water. It's shallow there, and I'd probably break my neck trying to jump in. There's nothing I can do but finish taking the river on up to the city central and then making a u-turn there. But this will be impossible without an innertube.

"Can't I just walk up the sidewalk? If I cross the river back again to the side where I started, can't I just walk and avoid the water freeway altogether?" As I say this, the landscape grows around me. Buildings come up to line both sides of the river freeway and footbridges cross over us. We are suddenly in a bustling East Asian city. Storefronts and busy city sidewalks line each side of the river and apartments with balconies of laundry, plants and sweeping housewives rise up above us.

"Am I in Bangkok?" I ask the Indian. He nods his head. Oh! Well I can just walk home then!

I jump back into my side of the river and swim to shore. I get out and start walking but I'm wet and barefoot so it's not very pleasant.

At this point, either I've forgotten part of the dream or else it blends into another one without any real segue, but next thing I know, I'm walking into the front door of my grandmother's old house. My father, brother and uncle are there, sleeping. It is night time and everything is dark.

My brother is in the living room sitting on the floor next to my grandmother's old orange armchairs rolling a joint with a girl by a dim tableside lamp. I'm surprised because I didn't know he smoked, but I don't want to embarrass him in front of his guest, so I act like I don't notice. He's rolling the joint with a sheet of notebook paper. He starts to light it up and I stop him and explain that he can't inhale that burnt paper without injuring his lungs. I tell him about how scar tissue in the lungs would affect the diffusion of gases across his capillaries and alveoli, and to illustrate I draw a picture of what looks like a light bulb to represent the alveoli and some squiggy lines on the bottom to represent the capillaries.

Then the situation changes. I tear off a shred of the paper that I was just drawing on and use it to roll a joint. My brother stops me and says that I need to use rolling paper. I explain that I have rolling paper, but that I don't know how to roll a joint. He says he'll do it for me if I bring him the papers.

I go to my uncle's room which is where I'm staying. But when I walk into the room and look at the familiar striped curtains, I remember that if I pull them open, I will see a frozen scene of birds flying. This was what happened in a previous dream and I know that this will always happen any time I come into this room in a dream. So I pull open the curtains and sure enough, there is a giant bird with a huge wingspan flying towards the window but it is frozen in time as if it were a picture. There are other birds behind it, and I can also see the sunlight, green grass and great tree of my grandmother's old front yard. I remember that I need to step outside to retrieve something that was left behind.

I go out her front door and start wandering around the front yard. I can't remember exactly what I was doing or who I was talking to. It is sunny outside, and I feel very young. Then I walk over to the garage and open the door, and suddenly it is night time and dark again.

My father is sitting in a chair in the dark garage. He asks me what took so long for me to come back home. I point to my barefeet and wet clothes and tell him that I had some difficulty with the water freeway. I tell him how I had to walk through Bangkok to get home. He just blows me off and laughs about how I'm always running late and can't keep regular appointments. I try to explain that I don't live the way he does, and considering that I've just managed to make my way through Asia on my own without transportation or shoes, I think I've done pretty well just to be a few hours late. My brother comes in and asks for the rolling papers and I remember that I left them in my uncle's bedroom. They just laugh that I can't ever get anything done right.