when suddenly before me:

The sky was that grey-green color, the kind that happens right before the world splits open, and it feels like everything beneath us, all of the tumbling sea, slick-backed fish and baleen whales, the nets of their mouths, are moments from capsizing beneath the burden of gravity. All that Midwest sadness around me, red lips, blonde hair curled in a 50s style, my dress suit the same color grey as the Chrysler I was driving, a cream bow crisp at my neck. Traveling the noose of the interstate system, spoked wheels lonely on the asphalt, the world wide open nothing, when suddenly before me, a gigantic building— I want to say Susie Mays, or Carol Sues, but that's not it (no one can remember the names of dreams as much as the names of memory). Still more grey but large windows everywhere, pulling the building from the tumbling world, shutters open, a glass hand greatly hung, reaching upward, and framed in a bow of teal and orange. The name Susie May or Carol Sue in that same script that every Village Inn or Huddle House used to use, the same script on those A-frame breakfast nooks in Mad Men, where every buttery beautiful thing on the menu is followed by a cent sign.

I thought I'd dreamed it; even in my dream, I couldn't believe it was true, this heavy-handed make believe, the towers of hotel rooms, the cavernous restaurant hall that looks like the church I attend, but smelled better, like pancakes and honey, the best brightness in technicolor.

So I made myself useful— the dream of my dreams being finding my use— and I collected all the mohair coats of all the beautiful brown-haired, pink-lipped women. I tottered a little on my alligator heels, but a man in long tailcoats put his hand on my shoulder, like a kickstand. He held me steady as more and more animal coats were piled, and I (giddily) watched the women drink champagne from long-neck crystal and laugh with the full force of their hearts at jokes I didn’t know.

And at the end— because I woke at 4a, which was close to then— a woman gave me a book of images, all Richard Avedon (I think, but again, these are names of dreams and memories), and the full title page was stuffed with beautiful letters of love and memories that Avedon had written just for the woman, and the woman was so happy with everything, every part of life she was experiencing, she gave the book to me.

But the man in the long-tail suit said I could not accept gifts, and threw it away in the metal can behind me. But later, after my hands were empty, I searched for the book, finding it better than before: happy and warmed by all that butter and honey.

on conscious forgetting:

So here are a few things about me:

1. My memory is fascinating. As a teacher, I remember names, faces, and everything my students write, almost immediately. I remember historical dates, seamstresses in films, every single song lyric, most poems. All of it.

2. I am absolutely haunted by my dreams. This can't be understated. My lucid dreams alter my conscious experience.

3. I consciously forget everything.

But let's just talk about right now, specifically, and how all these things become related, ultimately equaling the same thing (which probably is that I'm a little ridiculous and probably let the stars dictate how remarkably close I hold my hand to my chest).

We have traveled to Tampa. 

We have traveled to my parents' home, the one with the big gate, and all the acres, and gardens, the animals and the golden sun, the two houses.

We have traveled back in time. 

We have traveled to the miniature house I used to live in, off and on for ten years, between the times when life delivered blow after life-altering blow,

we have traveled to the place I used to stay when everything fell apart. My nest, cocoon, the greatest hiding place behind the big gate.

Everything is the same; it's no mirage, no mirror. The space is absolute: the trees are sturdy, and there is the constant sound of falling water everywhere. 

But I'm not the woman I was before.

I'm not a woman that clawls at the walls anymore. At least not right now, not for the last (almost) three years. You know: I figured out what to do to not to be that old ghost anymore. 

I mean, I got rid of the ghouls. 

No: I mean, I have forgotten what the ghouls did to me. 

No. I mean. I left. I mean I never spent the night again. I mean.

I mean I stopped throwing gigantic parties. I stopped talking.

I mean. I built a house. A small one. And I put myself in it. I put myself in it, and I only made a door when necessary.

I know that doors are not permanent things anymore. 

That is, my conscious mind knows the score. It knows the game of forgetting, and it's good. But. 

My unconscious mind, my lucid dreams--  the ones that stack on top of each other to show the big picture-- the ones that, no matter how many times I wake up and fall back to sleep, are still there. All night. 

Maybe it's the miniature house and that stark contrast between what it is now and how it used to be. 

I dream about people I don't even know.

That's a lie. 

I dream about people who used to be around, who showed up and did something stupid or outrageous, something worth remembering, before they disappeared. 

I knew this girl who was a stripper in high school. I knew this girl who made a sex tape, spontaneously, on one of those buses. I knew a girl who blew every single dude at every single party. I knew a girl who slept with a lot of dudes, one after the other after the other, all in a line, all in the room, all in my apartment. I knew a girl who dropped acid and showed up at my house, freaked out, and disappeared into the woods, crying.

I don't know any of these girls. 

I don't know their names. 

If I walked by them, if I met them at an art gallery, and we talked about something great, I wouldn't know it. It doesn't matter.

Those moments and myths are burned into my brain. 

They're knocking at the door I didnt know was there. Pulling down the walls, setting fire to my storeroom.

I don't know who they want. I dream of them in dialogue, on videos. I dream of sneaking into my house, hiding behind my walls, to learn the truth.

I can't believe it. But I do. I put those images away, like truth. And I wait for the voodoo. 

dream machine.

when i was nineteen or so, i used to see a dream therapist. he was this very old very tall man with a very long beard and he taught psychology or anthropology or something like this at the university. he had this tiny office off campus and my boyfriend and i would see him when it was very dark out. we would sit in his very dark office on this little orange couch, and this very old man would take us through dream meditations. i appreciated this form of thought mostly because there was no pressure to say anything or feel anything; i was just wandering around my skull with some guide, which made my brain a nice enough place to be.