3 1/2 Year Old Guilt

Bad dreams.

Berlin. I found myself back in KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) a huge mall (2nd largest in Europe - only Harrods is larger) where I bought a Swarovski vase and a Mont Blanc pen (yes, Gary, that's right - I bought a pen ...). See, the rule was (my self imposed rule) that I could only buy a 'famous' item if I was actually in the country that produced said item. I was cheating - I had been to Austria - briefly - but no where to buy any Swarovski - thus the cheating. This part is true to real life - the dream is duplicating what I did to a 'T' except I was alone and not with Gary and Ryan like the first time (but I was not with them, of course, while buying my treasures - I can only ignore Gary's eye rolling for so long).

I don't have any good photos of the mall - this was the best I could do:

And then things go south - and backwards. I see: Gedächtniskirche' it is across the street (true) but hadn't I been looking at it before going into the mall? (true). This time, I cross the street, holding my vase (I guess bags were not an option and my pen must have been in my pocket). It is a church that was bombed during WWII and was left in the condition it was in as a reminder 'Never again'. The building next to it is a memorial. It is a little freaky - right there across the street from KaDeWe and in the middle of downtown, but - there you go.

In my dream I go into the bombed out church - something we didn't do on the day we toured Berlin (the MOST depressing city I have yet or probably ever will visit). It is full of ghosts - I think - they look like those photos of WWII prisoners of war - the ones so thin and emiciated they are the walking dead. They are reaching for me, and pointing and I don't know what they are trying to tell me. It is freaking me out.

I notice they are pointing to the vase - I try to hand it to one of them and they shrink away like I was trying to burn them. I am confused, and scared and alone and I don't know what is wrong. It occurs to me some time later that they are offended by the vase - and I am ashamed to have such a beautiful thing in such an ugly place. I hold my arm straight out and drop it. I shatters into a million pieces. The ghosts thank me in the way ghosts who don't speak your language can say 'thank you' to you in a dream: you just know. And then they are gone - and I am standing in the bombed out church all alone.

I wake up.

What the hell was that?