Dreams about loss, not of people but of things. And it seems many of those dreams manifested in the last hour before I woke. I’ve been reading a lot about lucid dreaming, where you can move in between sequences without pause; it certainly felt like it. I wouldn’t be able to explain the surreality and blended flow of past vignettes otherwise.
It was like watching a scene from a Woody Allen movie and then interacting with all of its characters. I was having lunch at a restaurant, my dining companion nondescript when someone walked by the plate glass window holding up a book that looked familiar. Something I owned, something I knew. That flash of recognition compelled me to dash out of the restaurant in the direction from which the stranger had come, and into the not so distant past from which I had come. A series of life-like experiences and interactions with objects from my past followed: a box of items left under my desk at a former employer’s office; a ‘crooked’ pantry filled with discarded butter and opened bottles of water in from my childhood home; and the persistent presence of a brown corduroy jacket with cream colored pinstripe interior that I’m not sure I ever owned.
The interactions were accompanied by a wave of emotions. First, anger and annoyance for the company not trying to get in touch with me before donating my ‘goods’ to the strangers and streets of New York City. Then frustration and confusion that the new owners of my childhood home would let food spoil, in a Fantasian asymmetrical room. In each sequence, there was an undefinable and unrecognizable personality: the administrative assistant that was going to help me resolve the box issue; the young woman with curly brown hair sitting on a couch with a mug of tea; an older woman wearing the jacket, the one that used to be mine.
For the last few years, as February has shifted into March so have things and people shifted in and out of my life. A career, a house, a persona, and yes even that brown corduroy jacket. And for every exit, there has also been a beginning: a dream set in motion, a home created, and even a new addition or two to the unfinished fashion closet.
modern vintage ink 