associated in random thought

dreams

so last night, i dreamt of my father. i have dreams about him from time to time, and the context usually works one of three ways.

1. he is the silent guardian type of guy, watching as i encounter something hard or bad. once, i dreamt that fred phelps chased me all the way home like a bully, cornering me on my own porch. dad stood behind the screen door, and didn't say a thing. i found my bravery and eloquently defended myself while effectively dismissing his bullshit theology.

2. i'm an adolescent again, yelling at him for being dead. the vibe is usually one of "now who's gonna give me a ride to the mall?"

3. i'm utterly confused by the fact that he's alive when i know he's dead. and he's utterly confused by the fact that i keep telling him he died. "but i'm right here," he usually says. and i nod my head in disbelief: dead people are clueless about their mortality.

anyway, last night was more of a fictionalized family dream. i was a child and an adult simultaneously, and was learning, for the first time, the real story about my dad. that he left my mother in 1964 without a word. he simply disappeared for years. the only clue as to his disappearance was a demo tape he left on the lawn. he'd recorded something, elvis-style, that he'd written. the song was an ode to the new york times crossword, and the secret messages therein. it was a really crappy song, honestly, but it kept my mother going in the years of his absence. she spent twenty years or so looking for clues in the song, anything to give a hint of where her husband had gone.

so then, the mystery was solved when my father came back on the scene just before i was born. apparently, he didn't remember that he had a wife and children, and no one knew where he'd been or what he'd been doing, but my mom had to fly to oregon to bring him home. as the dust finally settled, rumors began to surface that he had another family somewhere. and that he'd had a successful music career.

and then i woke up.

the strangest part of the dream was that i was not even in it, really. i was simply listening to no one in particular tell this story. and i sat back and watched it like a flashback.

oh, but what does it mean???

Posted by bananie at July 18, 2006 10:34 AM | TrackBack