I wasn't sure if I was awake or still dreaming until I rolled over and pulled back the blinds on the window and looked outside. To my surprise, the sky was blue, not gray and stormy. I took a deep breath to let my heart know it could stop racing, and that the coast was clear. Despite the dream, there was nothing I needed to find or run from.
Waking up like this was a familiar occurrence when I lived in Oklahoma. It hasn't happened much since I moved to Texas.
Before I had time to process the dream, Ryan walked out of the bathroom, kissed me goodbye for the day, and dashed out the door to work. I wanted to stay in bed for the rest of the day, but I took a cue from Ryan and forced myself to get up. Even though I knew it was just a dream, my heart continued to wander the house, searching, like I did in the dream.
The dream I woke from this morning took place in the strangest of venues. The dream was set in a Wal-Mart. Adam, my mother, my father and my Aunt Rhonda were in the store with me. I had my acoustic guitar and I was showing my dad a melody I was working on. He started humming the melody and added to it. My Aunt Rhonda chimed into the music talk, telling me her favorite band was Heart. My dad said to my aunt, "No no. Beth's my voodoo child." Then he insisted that we buy Adam a guitar while we were in the store. Both Adam and I were excited, and we darted off to the musical instrument section.
Adam wanted to buy a drum set instead. When I turned around to ask my dad if that was okay, he was gone. I started looking for him, up and down the aisles, calling, "Dad, dad, where are you?!" I could hear him calling back out to me, "Beth, I'm over here! I'm over here!" but I couldn't see him and I never found him. That's when I woke up. In a way, I think I forced myself awake because I couldn't separate the dream from reality. I thought if I woke up, I could find him.
Instead I woke up, said goodbye to Ryan, and paced around in the kitchen for a few moments, then eventually walked outside. I did find a pack of Marlboro Smooths and lighter sitting in a fold up chair on my balcony. I suppose it was the next best thing to find, at least for the time being. I went back inside the house, grabbed my laptop, then back to the balcony to keep the cigarettes and lighter company.
When I logged into my email I found out I wasn't the only person who dreamed last night. My little brother Joey wrote me an email:
Sitting on the balcony, I realized what Joey's dream was saying. It has something to do with bad experiences from the past and those events repeating in our lives. I lit another cigarette and decided to stop searching. Then it felt like an alarm went off inside my head and my brain woke up. I remembered the melody my dad was humming last night in my dream. I went back inside the house and grabbed my acoustic guitar and started playing. It took me a few minutes, but I figured out the melody. It became a new song with my father's input from the dream.
In a way, it felt like I found my dad.
No comments:
Post a Comment