September 10, 2005
by Traci Gardner
People who know me will be surprised to hear that I got out of bed and was dressed before noon, and I actually left the house and ran some errands. People who know me very well will not be surprised to learn that the only reason this really happened is that I couldn’t get to the pharmacy yesterday before it closed and I was out of medicine. Apparently medicine is the only thing that I’ll actually leave the house for. There’s really so little reason to even get dressed normally.
People who know me will also be surprised to hear that I did a major purging in the bathroom. No, not that kind. I went through the ceiling to floor cabinet and threw away a full kitchen-sized trash can full of stuff. Then I rearranged what was left using some kitchen cabinet-type organizers (a turntable, a corner stacker you’re supposed to use for dishes). About 2/3 of the way through, I lamented that I didn’t take a before to compare to an after picture. Oh well. Anyway, people who know me well will not be surprised to learn that all this happened because I have a house guest coming and the bathroom was a disaster. Okay, the whole house is a disaster. I wasn’t thinking about it, but I guess I was doing the smallest room first. There’s still a ton of work to do to make the house inhabitable.
But I’ve fallen back into that lackadaisical mode now. Partly, I’m probably just tired. I mean it’s Saturday, and I didn’t take a nap. Beyond that, there is an impossible amount to do, and I feel defeated already. People who know me know that I always feel stupid and defeated though.
Am I working on all these tasks? No. I’ve been sitting at the computer for an hour or two trying to find something to write a lesson plan about. I need to write one on plagiarism, but I’m not feeling inspired. I can’t seem to find anything that I actually want to do. I just want to try to create 5 lessons before Thursday (which would be impossible, but all my goals are impossible. I’m a stupid fool, remember?)
Now my head is working on explaining why I should just go to bed. It’s earlier than I’ve gone to bed on a Saturday in a very long time, but that’s what my head is arguing. I’m not sure I want to sleep. I had a very worrisome dream this morning. It’s still very vivid. I was at a conference somewhere. People from the conference and others were just wandering around and doing things. Talking. Whatever. We’d go from building to building. Some were these oddly draped off conference rooms. But I also very clearly remember that there was a Home Depot. There was someone I was supposed to meet. He had been nice to me, and I was desparate to get back to him, though I can’t remember what he looked like at all. Just some nice guy, and I was supposed to get back to the conference hotel to meet him.
But then people started shouting and pointing, and overhead there were these two huge passenger planes, 727s or 747 or something, and one was sort of chasing the other flying far too closely. They were very brightly colored. Crisp whites, pink, blue, purples. And just past where I could see, they finally flew into each other. I heard the noise and saw the flash. People screamed and started running in the buildings. Then I was anxiously running through the buildings, trying to get back to meet this person who I was desparate to see. I think there was this thought that in the buildings we were safe. I was having to crawl under the draped dividers for the conference rooms to get from room to room. There didn’t seem to be any halls. Finally, I got to the door, and went outside. That was the only way to get back to the hotel. But now there were even more airplanes and now also blimps, flying into each other and crashing into crowds and buildings. I had to try to stay hidden, running from shadow to shadow. If they couldn’t see you, they couldn’t crash into you. I remember hugging the shadows of a kind of warehouse/industrial building. Across the street was Home Depot, and outside was some plastic tent thing. The blimp was diving for the building I was hiding by, so I dashed for the tent.
Inside, there was some odd hip hop party going on. They were trying to convince me to stay with them. I have no idea why they wanted me there. But I knew that I had to leave. I needed to get back to the hotel. So I crawled out from under the side of the tent (there’s a lot of crawling out from under draped places???), and I ran and hid in the shadows. Still planes and blimps flying into each other and into people. Why didn’t the hip hop party people care? Why were they having a party instead of hiding?
I made it into a school. Maybe it was the conference school. I’m not sure, but there were students all around. I ended up in some kind of student center/dining hall. People were lining up to get food in the cafeteria, but there were also a lot of people bowling and another area where they were playing pool. I was trying to make my way through the building, but then the planes and blimps started penetrating the building. It was this odd, soft, horrifying entrance. They flowed into the building. People would be walking or sitting there, and all of a sudden, the nose of one of these crisp, brightly painted planes would begin flowing through the bricks. The bricks seemed to stay there in place. Almost like they were ghost planes and blimps, simply floating through the wall and into the building. The soft flowing motion seemed so innocent and peaceful, but in reality, I was gripped with anxiety and horror.
I began hiding in the shadows again. If only they couldn’t see me, I might be safe; but the planes kept flowing into the building, and it was clear that I was barely keeping ahead of them. They kept flowing in, and it seemed impossible to escape. It seemed impossible to even understand. Where could so many planes have come from? Were there really this many terrorists in this small town? And it was clear that I would never get to my destination. No matter how much I ran and hide and tried not to be noticed, I would never get there.
I woke up as I was still running and hiding, trying to stay in the dark places and not be noticed. I did what people do when they wake up, and then I went back to bed. I have this odd ability to sometimes be able to pick a dream back up. Even though I’ve gotten out of bed and done something, the dream is still there sort of on pause on some subconscious level, and I can will it to come back. I don’t know how this works. Probably dream researchers would say it’s not possible. But I have done it many times. So I got back in bed and willed the dream back. The thing is I think it was as much, if not more, to see why all these planes were doing this. Willing the dream back did me no good. I was stuck in the same loop, running and hiding in the student center. I only remember more hiding and planes flowing through walls in that slow, macabre way. No matter how dark the place or how carefully I hid, planes continued to fly through the walls and I had to dash to some new dark place.
If I go to bed now, will it start back of its own will? Am I going to spend the night in anxiety attacks as I try to find a place where the shadows are dark enough that the planes cannot flow through the walls and find me? And who is this guy I’m trying to meet? I have no idea why I have this desparate need to see him. So I may now be off to spend another night in desparation and anxiety, hiding in the darkest corners and always, always being found.
I
Memorial flowers from my family, to celebrate the swimming life of dearly departed Stanley.