A Dreaming

Jenny Foster

I’m meeting my friend Joy at the park to find out more about opu-huli, a treatment to realign one’s organs. For the past week my stomach has been churning, cramping, and making life generally uncomfortable. I walk through two meadows where families are having picnics and I find myself on the edge of a sand cliff, the sea pounding a hundred feet below. For some reason I have tripped and I have dropped my keys and cigarettes just out of reach, on the edge of the cliff. I’m panicking, wondering how I’ll get my keys back so I can go home. I lay on my belly and stretch my arm out to reach my cigarettes—no problem—but the keys, glinting in the afternoon sun, tease me—just out of reach.

I lean forward, grab my keys and fall, knowing the sand is starting to give way. Luckily the cliff is layered at the edge, so that I can roll alongside it, and climb back to the top. This is fine, I’ve passed the test, right?

On the headland sits a gentleman, who is meditating. Right before him is a pit that I inevitably fall into. I’m enclosed by walls of sand; by leaning my back against one wall and sticking my legs out in front of me I in front of me, I have plugged myself in the hole. But I feel the sand trickling behind my back and know I will soon fall the five hundred feet below and break my neck. There are metallic rectangles sticking out of the walls, symmetrically placed at 60 degrees apart and they are stacked all the way down, but I know if I put my foot on one of them, everything will collapse.

“Help!” If I yell too loudly all the sand will give way behind my back. With a bird’s eye view I see an old man come to the top of the hill.

“I am the city symphony conductor!” he announces. “She is my violinist, therefore we must save her.” I’ve never played the violin in my life, but I don’t say anything.

The man meditating on the headland declares he has a rope. They find that it is too short, therefore somebody will have to go back to the car and get another one.

“If you wait any longer, I will die,” I tell the top of the hole. I lean all my strength into making them drop the rope. They string it down, around the metal boxes and I reach forward and grab it. They pull, and suddenly I’m where I started from.

In real life, Joy is a counseling psychologist and a friend from my workplace. When I tell her about my dream, she says that I must face my unknown journey without fear, and that I may think I’m alone but there are other people in life to help. The keys and the cigarettes symbolize those things in life that are comforting, but despite the comfort, the fear of the unknown is still there.

Her reading reminds me of a journey I think I should have been afraid of before, and though it seems to be over, I’m more afraid of it now than I was at the time. My mother is driving me across the city of Indianapolis, a capital city in an unending heartland, through the snow. Dirt has collected in the tread marks ahead of us and behind us, and we find ourselves in a 7-11. She needs a rest from the never-ending snow, we’ve been driving for an hour after leaving the warmth of my grandmother’s house.

Inside the store is a row of greeting cards—cute flowers, bunnies, hearts, and I must choose something to commemorate the day. It should be a large design, because when I give it to him he won’t be able see it too clearly. I guess it’s been hard for him to wear glasses lately.

"C’mon," she tells me, and I pick out two cards, one huge heart for valentine’s day, and a flowery father’s day card.

“Why did you get the extra one?” she asks.

“Well, you don’t know if we’ll be back before Father’s day, right?” I don’t say what she doesn’t, how unlikely it will be that he lives that long.

She is tight-lipped. She rummages through her wallet to pay for the cards and to buy some mints. Funny, I only saw my mom eating mints during church service, but I didn’t ask why she bought them.

It’s cold outside and we hurry inside the big SUV. I’ve never been a large person, but the seats seemed like huge chasms, with my mom far at the edges gripping the steering wheel, almost out of sight. I take out my Crayola Markers from the glove box and draw huge letters across the white envelopes.

The snow is worsening, and the whip-whur of the windshield wipers increases mom’s agitation. Red taillights appear suddenly in the dark and thickening whiteness. “Damn drivers,” she says. She brakes and we slide a bit until the tires grip the road again.

I look across the canyon at her, and know that I must thank her for everything she’s done. That my brother is not with us doesn’t seem to faze her but I am left wondering. Usually his humor relaxes her and makes her smile. My mother has a very pretty smile. She doesn’t think so, saying her teeth are crooked.

“Mom?” I say.

“Um-hmm...” She is concentrating and I follow her gaze through the windshield. The taillights are a little further ahead of us.

“Thanks for taking me,” I say. Then out in a rush, “I-know-you’re-really-busy-but-I-am-thanking-you-for-taking-me-to-see-him-and—”

She interrupts me sharply. “Dammit, I’m trying to drive, okay? Let’s just get there in one piece.” Somewhere down the line I have put blame on her for that day. Now I am able to zoom out wide enough to see that it wasn’t the best time to try and communicate the good-daughter. That she wasn’t angry, that perhaps she was tired and frustrated with where she found herself on that wintry day, driving her adopted daughter to her adopted father’s hospital bed.

Eventually we pull into the parking lot of S- Hospital. We have made it across town in an hour and a half. The hospital is impressive, two wings twelve stories high. It looks like an office building and when we swish through the sliding doors the florescent lighting hurts my eyes. Suddenly everything is too clear: the large entrance hallway, the black and white checkered floor, brass signs with arrows pointing away from us. I wonder if it’s possible to buy snow-glasses, so that instead of so much clarity I could look at things through a snow-storm instead.

We find a nice reception area for my mother. She situates herself in a brown vinyl chair and pulls out a magazine from her large purse. I stand there looking at her. “I think I’ll wait here,” she says. “Just come back and get me when you’re ready.”

“How long is that?” My feet suddenly hurt.

“Hmm, well, not too long. He’s probably tired.”

I don’t even look at the clock. I don’t even know what time it is. I turn and walk towards the elevators, two cards in hand. I’ve stepped into the light of the elevator, I push the buttons, I am brought out into the light.

These days I remember going and not being afraid. Feeling warm that I will be there and my molecules and his molecules will be in the same room, maybe buzzing together in kalaidescope vibrations. Yes, I think that’s it. So I guess it’s not the going there that I am so afraid of after all, it’s the part about being brought into the light.