Waiting for Change

I had a dream that I was trying to find home last night, with Jeff beside me. We were taking the Chinatown bus. (I think I'd like to be a gardener. But I'd need some semi-official training. What a gratifying job it would be. At least I imagine it would be gratifying. More so than sitting on my ass all day as a receptionist.) Anyway, coming home is such a significant symbol for me. The desire to be home, and yet I never make it in my dreams. Maybe it's a search for the ultimate safe place, the welcoming. In the begining of the dream I was sitting outside of a line of shops or buildings at a table waiting with a group of people. Waiting for the bus and I think waiting for Jeff. He kept coming out in different guises and it bothered me a bit. First he came out as Bob Dylan and then dressed dramatically as a yo-boy. Wigger. All in intense black and white and gold chains (yes, black and white...) And I just walked away from him up the street to the last building. I had no stomach for it what so ever. He came after me as himself and put his hand on my elbow and talked to me. Maybe he wanted to know that I wasn't okay with it? He asked something funny about me knowing he would be Bob Dylan before he did it and that stopped me. That awareness. Then we were on a bus together and it was stopping in Philly, at least that's what I was assuming. It was a pretty scenic looking little town with quant buildings winding pleasantly around street corners and overlooking water. The roads were small and packed with stopped cars and buses. Everything seemed in a state of waiting, on the brink of change or movement. Our bus was forced to stop for a moment and we were obliged to get off. And at some point I realized our bus was gone, it had left without us. We were stuck in Philly. (Stuck in waiting...) I remember trying to get onto another bus, a cheese wagon, but it wasn't right and getting right off. When I stepped off I put my hand on the side of the bus and was shocked by a long strip of black plastic that resembled an antena. My hand was stuck by the shock and didn't release for a couple seconds and I was troubled. As we walked on I didn't know what to do, all I could think about was how expensive a taxi would be from Philly to MD and it defeated the whole purpose of taking a cheap bus. I was also frustrated that the bus driver hadn't been more attentive to us as passengers to make sure not to leave without us. I started to cry.

The dream is obviously about change in the air, charged with potential, waiting at the gate to take off. What is curious to me is my feelings when I find I'm stuck. They seem to reflect my desire for things to come "cheaply". Which I suspect translates to easy, without trouble. And I'm frustrated to find out it isn't possible and it seems I keep myself in that state of waiting as a result. I see a period of slowness ahead of me and I feel very impatient. I don't want to be slow anymore. I want change to come cheaply to myself. With little trouble and no inconvenience. Why was Jeff dressed in my black and white thinking? I don't understand that... But it is interesting that I had no stomach for the black and white. I'm a little unsure of how he operates as a symbol in my dreams. What part of me does he represent? I'm tempted to apply the symbols around Jeff in my dream to my perception of him in real life. I think I understand. I see myself projecting this black and white thinking on him, on his identity and struggling with that- which is what I have done to myself first. Using a confined perception to evaluate myself and ultimately everyone else. What I find curious about the pattern of my progression is that the dream often comes on the heels of resolution. Like a manifestation of it. I have been struggling with said issue first under the surface, then the struggle enters awareness, as struggle is resolving I dream about the old pattern and how it was effecting my life. The ultimate confrontation with self and reality. But only after the facts have been accepted and embraced.

Maybe I talked about this before? Maybe it was just something similar? It is strangely difficult for me to express certain feelings, specifically the strong good ones. It's taken me nearly 28 years to be able to say some of them to the most significant people in my life, mother, brother, father. As well with close friends. Lately I have been relying on my body language and actions to say for me those feelings I can't seem to speak, to bring out in words. The actions and expressions are sincere and I manage some satisfaction from my ability to at least communicate that way. At least it's not paralysis. But words are important too. Our lives are shaped around and understood through words. As powerful as our bodies are at communicating there is a desired verification that is only achieved through speaking. I love you, you're valuable, beautiful, smart, protected... They are all little blankets that we wrap around each other, a promised padding and security we know to rely on, trust. Like children and little animals, that small thing inside of us seeks these protections in our closest relationships.

What is curious is I have gradually cultivated that ability in myself. Both to receive love in this form as well as to offer it. I was like a small cornered animal somewhere around the age of ten and on for years, I could not be consoled by words, looks, or love. They had no power over me to make me feel safe or to even be believed. I wondered how other people could be soothed in these ways, it all seemed impotent to me. Why was I like that and how did I change? To some degree I changed because living like that is violent and difficult. I began to listen to peoples words, test them like a wine, feel them. Let them into me to move around and see if they effected me, found a place to rest. I think it began when I started to let other people be real and started to form a sense of who they were. That core gave me some base to work with when interpreting their words and meanings, to see consistencies and trust them there, to recognize where they fell through and to anticipate them in future. Instead of being adrift on an undefined sea, lacking barings on anything, I began to see a reliable world form around me that could be understood and navigated. I wasn't walking blindly in the darkness of a rough and broken terrain. I could step with sure footing.

I think I see. As a child I had a concept of life that had been trusted, accepted up front (as children do, perfectly natural). I was secure, and for years nothing challenged or threatened that perception and I lived in it happily. I had an unreflected belief about reality that simply existed within me. When my mother had her memories, and simultaneously the input from my peers and surrounding world changed I found myself in the position that most of my accepted beliefs about my world (and indirectly myself) were actually wrong. Again, as a child I didn't have clear ways of expressing or even understanding the momentously big shift happening in me. I could not recognize it, yet still it was happening. Oh the helpless position of a child in turmoil. She can not articulate within herself what she is experiencing and has no hope of getting that across to anyone else. She is as good as a mute animal, struggling with her sad body to entreat those around her for help and unable to make them understand. I stopped trusting everything at that moment. I stopped believing. And in that moment everything became unpredictable and dangerous to me. What had once guided me harmlessly through my little life had suddenly become false in the soul of my being and I had no guide anymore. I was falling in a black void. As much as I have come out of that void now I can't imagine ever being truly free of that child's abyss. I feel it close around the edges of my heart and soul, a blackness that still threatens to consume me in a state of blindness I have no hope of navigating. Pity that little girl. She was lost and her faith taken from her and she did not even know it. I know what happened to me now. I know my story. I understand my little girl.