The Gift ... of a Dream

I dreamed last night.

Well, more like this morning. I vaguely remember Gary getting ready for work around 6 - 7 am and then ... very unusual for me - I fell back asleep! And not the regular - flitting back and forth between this world and my dream world. I was deep, deep in my dream world!

I awoke around 10:00, surprised that I could sleep so late, but I was now in a new world - one that did not exist before I fell asleep just those 3 short hours earlier.



I had dreamed of Jessie ...



I can't decide if I should start at the beginning or the end?

When I awoke - I was 100% convinced that I was headed over to her apartment at 2:00 this afternoon to pick up some fliers that we decided needed to be distributed to the neighboring community ...

It seemed perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary that my daughter, Jessie, was perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary ... perfectly perfect.

I stood up to head into the bathroom. The pain, as I stood was so intense it totally overwhelmed me. I was not on my medications since it was morning and not having taken them at 7:00 as I should have. As I stood there - trying to get some control over the pain so that I could take that first painful step - a niggling memory flitted across my brain and I started becoming confused. This continued and on walking back out of the bathroom the realization came crashing around me that I had only been dreaming ...

It was only a dream?

No!


It WAS SO REAL!


And I told myself to think back - to the last thing I remember - duh, Lori - it was waving at Jessie as she was heading into the school building!

What?


Wait ...



What?



*sigh*




Oh ....



And all of a sudden I was desperate to remember my day with Jessie. My day with my perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary, perfectly perfect Jessie.

I am still standing between the bathroom entry and the bed as the memories of the dream flit quickly through my head - but I realize that I am losing them! I envision a scene from the movie 'Inception'. I will elaborate for those of you who have not seen the movie. There is a scene (actually many) where he is in a dreamworld. A city that he has built totally within his mind. It is full of skyscrapers. Beautiful, large, looming buildings all up and down the edge of a beach. He is standing in or near the water and as he is standing there, the buildings around him are collapsing, one by one - tall buildings, just dropping, dissolving as if they were made of sand ...

As I envision this scene from Inception I realize this is what is happening to me - my dreamworld is slowly crashing around me - dissolving like so much sand ... and I am desperate to remember.

I quickly get back in bed and grab my iPad. I quickly open the word processor and I frantically start to type - lists, memories, ANYTHING that is left. Sometimes through tears, sometimes with a huge smile on my face - but ALWAYS with a sense of desperation.

I have a sense that I am racing a clock which is slowly ticking down to zero. At zero all memory of my dream will be gone - and I am losing more and more as I frantically try to quickly convey an entire experience in a few words and move on before another building is lost ...

I am typing so fast (in a prone position) and the typo's are plentiful. I am annoyed with the spell checker that is going about mucking it up even more by replacing a perfectly good, albeit misspelled word with some random nonsense - but I HAVE NO TIME! No time to track down the insidious, obnoxious option and turn it off. I just hope that I will recognize what I have typed at the end ...

My typing slows, but I remember there was SO MUCH MORE! So much more ...

I have been typing for an hour - pages and pages of notes and I realize that some of the first memories that I typed are only there because I wrote it down - trying to access that memory in my mind - it is gone ... another building dissolved and reclaimed by the beach and ocean waves.

I sigh - I try and try to remember more, but it is not there. I look around my dreamworld while standing on the beach - the waves gently lapping at my ankles. It is mainly a vast ruin and wasteland - nothing for miles and miles - but every now and again I see a pocket of buildings - knowing that they are only standing with the the support from the words that I see in front of me on my iPad ...


My dream,


my beautiful, beautiful dream.


My day with my perfectly normal,


perfectly ordinary,


perfectly perfect daughter ...



is officially over.


Well, apparently I decided to start at the end, now, didn't I?




I dreamed a dream of a day with Jessie.



It is unclear how it starts ...



we just are ...




We just ....



exist.


Jessie is an implausible combination of realities. She is about 12 or 13 years old. She is small - I am still taller than her! I don't believe that was the case when she was 12 or 13 years old. She is in college or high school - I am not sure which and yet I take her there - escort her for some unknown, unspoken reason. Maybe we just are together because we want to be.

It just is.

She lives in an apartment on her own - as if she is in college. It is an older, but well kept light brick building and she lives on the second of three floors. The hallway to her apartment is dim, and depressing somehow - just a fleeting feeling I have ...

Inside her apartment is a few rooms, sparsely furnished all with beautiful wooden floors. I could be a room from the movie 'Inception' for all I know ... I do not recognize it from anything that my subconscious could have built it from. I don't remember much about the apartment but the whimsical Christmas decorations! It is not Christmas time - it is some time in spring in a town with lovely weather - I am thinking Pasadena, California - but more on that later. The decorations were there left over from the tenant before her and she says she likes them so she kept them up. I find it ... charming in her!

We are not in her apartment for long - maybe I am there to pick her up and take her to school. Maybe it is from a part that I forgot. I seem to have been there a few times - but only a feeling I get when I try and try to remember.

And we are off! We are walking.

The first place I remember being is an old abandoned clump of land. There is a dilapidated house on it. There are discarded pieces of furniture and old appliances scattered about the 4 or 5 acres that we are traversing. The ground is hard and uneven. I don't remember many weeds, but there are some. We notice some drums - rusty and corroded and we discuss that this place should really be cleaned up. She joked to me that maybe we could get it declared a 'superfund site'. I remember in my dream being proud of her for caring and for actually knowing what a superfund site was!

Aside: after I woke up I was a little unsure that I knew exactly what a superfund site was so I looked it up: "A Superfund site is an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people."


She was spot on!


That's my girl ...

We decide to look around, clearly we are in no hurry to get to school - just one of the many inconsistencies that exist in this dreamworld.

It is not smelly like a dump and there is very little what you would call garbage. Just abandoned appliances and furniture and hazardous looking drums - as if people had been using the site for that purpose for quite some time.

We decide to sneak through the house - and see what it is like. It is empty, at odd angles like a fun house and we scamper about - me included - I have no pain of severe arthritis or illness in this dreamworld ... It is devoid of furniture and dusty. But was interesting to investigate all its nooks and crannies.

Suddenly, we are in the living room of the house standing near the front door when the Allens appear in the doorway. This is a family I grew up with in my ward in Logan, Utah. There was a daughter my age who was a friend: Heather. They are 'age appropriate' for my dream - which I would consider the present even though Jessie is only 12 or 13 ... size wise - everything else about her screams that she is in college - her mannerisms, her speech, her actions - maybe she is just a really, really smart 13 year old? I don't have a clue why they decided to crash my dream - I never think about them and have no communication with them at all, but oddly do know what each of them looks like now, present day.

The parents because there was a photo of them in some photos my father had sent me of his summer travels. He wanted me to stitch together some of his photos of a waterfall, Hoover Dam bridge and a few other things, but on the CD was everything. Included was a party up at our old cabin at Bear Lake which was either for my parents - since they live in Arizona now, or just happened while they were in town. Either way - my father had taken some photos of the attendees - all our old neighbors when we (me, my parents ...) lived in Logan, Utah. They were in a photo at the party and were still recognizable as the Allens - just, well - way older!

As for my friend Heather, she is my friend on Facebook, but does not include her photo anywhere. Obsessively absent from any of her photos. A rather odd thing since I found her by sneaking over to her sisters profile and looking through a photo album - unprotected ... Facebookers beware - there are people like me out there that go off and look around at non-friends albums and they are viewable unless you set up your privacy! Luckily it was unprotected (as if I am going to do anything but look at the photos and enjoy seeing old friends families ...) and there was a shot of her sitting on a couch - and she is STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL. If I were that pretty - man, I would have that as my Avatar in a minute and tons of photos of myself in my albums!

Ahem ... I digress ...


They are standing in the doorway and Professor Allen wandered into the living room so I was having to look in two different directions to speak with them. I say hello and Professor Allen wanders deeper into the house - never saying a word - rather odd since he was, probably still is, the very friendly, verbal sort ...

I turn to Heather and her mother and say: "Hi! Let me introduce you to my daughter. This is Jessie."

They smile and say hello and: 'Oh my! Aren't you beautiful?". I remember being so proud of her, so, so proud and so very thrilled to be her mother! Except for that one little thing: I had to make Jessie say hello to them! Jessie is neither shy nor quiet - so I smile at a memory of me nudging her and whispering to her "Say hello, Jess!".

It is at this point in my memory that I try and remember her physical characteristics. I remember her in a few different outfits of clothing, but for most of the dream - which seems to span a linear chunk of time: us heading to her school - she is in only one, consistent outfit. In addition, there are jumbled parts which I don't think are linear I vaguely remember. These mostly forgotten flashes probably explain the changes of clothing and multiple times in her apartment.

I am going to stick with my most vivid memory of the walk to school. She has long blond hair like she had when she was young and it is hanging loose. It is full of body and a little curl - it comes about halfway down her back. It is styled in such a way that it stays back like it is hair sprayed into place or has clips holding it back - but neither is the case as it is free flowing and moves around as she moves and with gusts of wind. It frames her face perfectly ... a face that for some reason I cannot see. I am sure she has one! I just do not remember it at this point.

She is wearing a dress - it is sleeveless and full of shades of blues and beige and white and seems to be an abstract paisley print. It is a rather plain design - just a sleeveless dress with no waistline, scoop neck and comes just below her knees - hanging as if it is made of a rayon type fabric. It is simple, yet is beautiful and looks beautiful on her. The fabric is shiny - with the blues and beige's that seem to match her tanned skin and the blue eyes that I cannot see. The fabric shimmers as she moves. She is not holding anything, nor am I - which seems rather odd since we are clearly headed to school in my dream - but we are unconcerned about this.

We leave the Allens and head out the front door. We are back in the fun house again climbing off the front porch and then through some twisted metal junk and it gets difficult to navigate our way out to the flat lands once again where our biggest concern was having to swerve around old rusted appliances and steering clear of ominous looking drums of waste.

We again mention that something needs to be done about this area and decide to really, actually take care of it. Instantly


*poof*


there are fliers back at Jessie's apartment that need to be handed out to the surrounding businesses and houses. We discuss it further and suddenly we step onto a sidewalk on a very busy road. Looking back at the memory - I realize that we are on a stretch of Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California.

While Gary was getting his masters degree at Cal Tech, I worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but not at their main location. I worked in a run of the mill, very ordinary looking building on Colorado Boulevard. I don't know / remember if this was because of space considerations or security reasons. My guess is security since there was a lot of security on this top secret project I worked on for the Air Force - including some bizarre doorway we went through - cannot remember it all now - stuff in the walls, scanners, it was just what I call 'spy shit bizarre'.

We were standing in the area near that innocuous looking building and turned and started walking East on the South side of the street (the side my building was on). All of a sudden we are in a mall. There is no mall in that area of Colorado Boulevard, so my dreamworld had decided to build one and put us in it. We are still in no hurry to get to school (or we started out, say FIVE HOURS before school was going to start ...) and we were goofing off in the store. Jessie was happy, and playful and funny. She tried on some costumes and looked lovely in a pink feather boa and big black glasses with the big nose.

Here, I have obviously stolen memories from real life and incorporated them into my dream. When living in Norway, Ryan and I would go somewhere during his spring break and Gary would watch Jessie. We went to Paris, France the first year, and Germany the second year. In Germany, after adventuring our brains out in Bavaria, Germany, we were tootling along on the autobahn on our way back to Frankfurt and the airport we flew into when all of a sudden, something flashed out the right side window as we were speeding recklessly by. It took a second for it to register in either of our minds - having been so long since seeing one and NEVER BEFORE seeing one in Europe. Ryan turned to me and said (verbatim ... it was classic): "Dude! Was that a Wal-Mart?"

It was and we immediately exited and wound our way back to it. Something familiar in the midst of: First - Europe for about a year and a half and Second: - Germany which, where we had been touring, looked like we had plonked ourselves back in time to about the 1870's ...

We got out and went in and other than it being two stories tall - with the escalator type things they had over in Norway to accommodate shopping carts - it was a Wal-Mart though and through ... except things were all in German ...

I wanted to name the shopping cart escalator for you - but scoured the web for even a photo and couldn't find one. They were great. They were inclined moving walkways (so smooth) and when you rolled your cart onto it, there were specially designed groves in the floor of the walkway and grooves in the wheels of the cart that stopped it from rolling (since you were on an incline and it would roll). They were cool and a great idea - especially after scouring the web for a photo and finding all sorts of contraptions where your cart had its own little ramp next to you on the escalator - this was (like - oh, so many things in Norway were) so simple, yet genius in design and the easiest solution to the problem. Digressing again, I know ....

While in the Wal-Mart with Ryan - we played around with the toys - especially a talking bear since we had one like it - only this one spoke German! It was fun. And we HAD to stop at the costume section. It was strange - but in Norway (and apparently other countries) the costumes you would see out in the US at Halloween were out all year. This very well may be because they do not HAVE a Halloween - and would sell them for 'dress up' - I don't know. I just know there was always a costume section in toy stores and such. Ryan let me take photos of him trying on a few things ... including a pink feather boa (looked better on Jessie) but never any 'funny nose glasses' ...

So close ... and yet so VERY different! The personalities were different, the conversations, the things we did - so not a blank replacement with 'my one day of Jessie' Jessie and Ryan. We had a blast! A lot of laughing and silliness.

And just like that we were on the sidewalk again continuing our walk east ...

Up ahead is a street and a light (duh, we ARE on Colorado Boulevard - all the streets have lights!). I told her (since it was red and we were rather a long ways from it) that if we ran - we could hit the 'walk' light. Maybe NOW we were in a hurry, I am not sure why I tell her this.

Then I said: "Race ya!" And started running! As did Jessie.

At this point my sub-conscious breaks in just a titch (this happened a few times during my dream). I remember racing Jessie - we were both running flat out as fast as we could and we were neck and neck. There is no sidewalk now, no street, no buildings - just me and Jessie running and laughing ....

Time slows as I slowly turn my head towards my daughter and see a silhouette of a face, hair streaming behind her and she was laughing - and my sub-conscious says to me ... almost harshly:

"Remember this moment!"

And I do! I ran a race with my daughter! One of those things that forever Moms sometimes don't ever get to do - especially sick, out of shape forever Moms! I have a very clear, distinct memory of running with Jessie now - what a gift!

(Note: it has been HOURS since I typed this in, never realizing that I had used one of my 'made up' words - until now! In a blog post a very, very long time ago - I wrote that in referring to a "Forever Child" - logic would imply that there was a "Forever Mother" somewhere in that scenario and referred to myself as one. Although I did not make up the term "Forever Child" it is something that makes sense without further explanation, whereas the term "Forever Mother" - that is most definitely not the case! I wonder how many people I have confused so far?)

Time speeds up, the sidewalk returns, the buildings are back and we reach the light - and we have missed it! Which makes us laugh even more than we were laughing racing for the light. So we stand and wait for the next 'walk' signal to cross.

I turn and Kay Potter - a lady from the Mission Bend Ward that I knew was standing there also waiting for the light and I said hello. We spoke for a moment - all three of us - there were no introductions everyone knew everyone. I told her about our new project - getting the abandoned area declared a superfund site and cleaned up. I told her that I had called the EPA (news to me until this moment) and that we were distributing fliers around town to drum up support. She thought that was a great idea and said that she wanted to help. I told her that I was picking up the fliers at Jessie's apartment later that day and if she wanted - I could drop some off at her house. She told me that would be great!

The light changed and we crossed the street.


As dreams are wont to do - we are suddenly at her school. It seemed as if we had exited the urban part of town and were in the sub-burbs. It was a light red brick building - surrounded by many other red brick buildings as if we were on a campus somewhere. There were about 8 - 10 steps up to some large glass double doors. We are standing about about 30 yards from these steps on a sidewalk. There are no people anywhere - just us two, but I do not have the impression that she is late for school either ...

We discuss the fliers, that I would be there this afternoon to pick them up. (Apparently I didn't need to escort her back to her apartment AFTER school in this world ...). We said our goodbyes and she turned and walked away from me.

Maybe not wanting our time to end, maybe wanting to see her face one more time, maybe wanting to get the last word in, I shouted to her: "I will come get those fliers this afternoon!" having already discussed this and the logistics of who was going to do what.

She stopped, maybe halfway to the steps to the glass doors and turned towards me. The sun was behind her making her long hair glow and giving her entire small body in the shimmery blue and beige dress a halo effect. She shouted back: "I know you'll be there. I will see you then!"

She turns back towards the building ... and here things get ...


jerky.


She is moving towards the building, but seems to get no closer. I notice faded ghosts of people milling about everywhere - as if they have been there the whole time but I had chose to ignore them.

I try to get one final glimpse of her - maybe a mother's duty of making sure she got into the building safely, maybe because things were fading, changing and my subconscious wanted to see her one last time.


I can't find her.


The scene changes ...

to something else.

Actually lots of them:


I am on a beach at sunset

zoom ...

I am in our front yard as Gary trims branches off the trees - with piles and piles of branches surrounding us (a stolen memory from a few days ago)

zoom ...

I am at Tivoli at night (A beautiful amusement park just a short walk away from the Marriott hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark. There they have the mostbeautiful, colorful lights per square meter than you will see anywhere in the world ...)

zoom ...

I am in a plane, window seat, looking out the window at the tops of white puffy clouds

zoom ...

I am in an institutional type room, it is dim, cold and gray. It could be any hospital, government building, insane asylum ... anything. The room is empty the window is blocked by grimy shades blocking out most all of the light. There is no furniture there ... I am just standing in an empty room - with the door open to a hall. The hall is just as dim. I don't know where it goes. I can hear someone crying down the hall and I wonder

zoom ...

I am back standing in front of the school building again. I am still looking for her and suddenly I spot her! She is at the top of the stairs pulling open one of the large glass doors. I calm down a bit. I am totally happy, at peace, no pain, no worries, just me - a mom doing something as mundane as dropping a daughter off at school and making sure she gets inside.

I smile. I have done my duty. She is in the building ... well, almost.

As I am still looking at her, she pauses as she is pulling the door open, turns as much as she can while still holding the door handle, twists her head and spots me. She raises her free hand, waves and smiles broadly and I get a final glimpse of the most beautiful blond haired girl / woman I have ever seen!

I don't recognize her in my mind when I think back to that memory, but the dream me ... the one who is pain free and can run races with her daughter ... not to mention crawl and climb through a dusty old abandoned tilting house and think nothing of it ... THAT Lori knows it is my Jessie. I smile and wave back.

And suddenly the screen fades to black, my eyes open and I am laying in bed as I said before - wondering what time I should run over to Jessie's to pick up the fliers?