Dream: As the crow flies?
Apr. 26th, 2007 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mokie_edomAs the crow flies?
In my dream, I was walking to my destination through the mildly upclass streets of the Central West End, with its nicely sized lots, well-kept brick houses, big leafy trees and quiet streets. The trees were in autumn colors, the tree bark and asphalt were damp but it was not rainy; I think, time-wise, it was late October or early November. I don't remember my destination, but I was in no particular rush to get there, and was enjoying the stroll in the meantime.
As I passed one house, an old man yelled at someone else nearby that they needed to get off of / stay away from his property. He used a nasty epithet for the person--dirty Jew, I believe--and appeared to be well satisfied with himself for it. It put a damper on my pleasant day out, and I decided to take a short-cut down a sidestreet to get away from the little old bastard.
My short-cut continued into a boxy office building with a wing made of glass which I thought had an exit at the opposite end. In the little glass room was the secretarial pool, typing away, and the room itself turned out to be a dead end--and the suits were coming! There was a small door to the outside, tucked into a door behind some clutter, but it dropped five feet down straight to lawn; the builders had considered it useless, the girls explained, and hadn't seen reason to provide steps or a porch. I was very nervous at being found where I didn't belong but the secretaries said there was no other way out but the way I'd come, so while one delayed the execs, I shimmied out of the small glass door and took off across the lawn.
At the street I worried that the office detour had taken me far off course but fortunately I was only a block from where I'd wanted to end up. A church was on the way, not a tall stony Catholic-looking CHURCH but a small, bland and stuccoed Protestant shoebox, with little faux stained glass bats taped to the windows and in the crook of pillars. Holiday decorations! This so interested me that I thought I'd cut through the church on the way.
Once inside, I realized that there was a sermon in progress and got nervous at the thought of interrupting anything or being recognized. I crawled on hands and knees to a pew near the front and sat in the aisle, on the floor, pretending to sing hymns with everyone else. As I brushed snow from my leg, a toddler wobbled over to me and began to climb on me. Her ineffectual adult hovered nearby, twittering and wringing her hands and otherwise not at all reigning the child in.
Afterwards I wandered to a refreshments table and poured myself a little punch, and the child (now six or seven-ish, not a toddler), followed me with her adult in tow. The woman waffled on how kids are, doncha know, and how people complain that her granddaughter is rude or spoiled because they don't understand how to deal with kids. With all intentions of doing a good thing (I swear it!), I asked if the granddaughter was the girl in question, "because, if she is, I have to tell you, as the person she was using as a jungle gym there, she really is obnoxious. I mean, no offense or anything, but you should know, I think."
This did not go over well.
As she huffed and left, a redneck fella behind me joked that the minister had been looking for him, and asked me not to give him away. I noticed that he was sitting on the rail of my closet door at my old house, and said I'd keep his secret. His friend walked up and looked into the closet. I felt a twang of annoyance at people going into my space, then the guy remarked on the crow in the closet.
Crow? CROW! I'd forgotten to take the crow with me when I moved!
I ran over and pulled out the large aquarium with the crow in it, panicking over how I could have forgotten it in the move and how long it had been without water. I shoved the aquarium into a cluttered corner and ran off to find it food and water. As I headed for the kitchen of my old house, I noticed several of the guy's kids sitting at my computer, and I blew a gasket at them. I demanded to know what they thought they were doing, I ripped their cords from my computer, and I screamed at them as they stalked off. Then I stormed into the cluttered, cluttered kitchen, poking around, moving things to move things to get to things in order to move things to get to other things, until I found a box of bird-shaped dog biscuits. I tossed a few into the cage but it already had some uneaten in the bottom. I also noticed, with great surprise, that there was now a dove in the tank, as well as a small lizard and a larger lizard/snake that appeared to be harassing the crow.
Notes and explanations
#1. I used to attend school in the Central West End. We meandered the streets a fair bit between classes.
#2. The office building reminds me of the CWE library, though I can't remember the name of that branch and haven't been there in many, many years. In similar fashion, the church reminds me of Oak Hill Presbyterian in Tower Grove Heights (or is it Oak Hill? Stupid tiny subneighborhoods!) despite looking almost nothing like it.
#3. I still have no clue where I was supposed to be going. I was almost there, though, before being thrown back into the old house abruptly.
#4. The tank with the crow in it is, in waking life, a vivarium with a number of frogs in it.
#5. A number of individual elements might be traced to waking life conversation snippets, like a customer who mentioned releasing a crow who'd had a broken wing, or a Snopes bit on prayer being banned at Steak'n'Shake. I see hints of this when I re-read these bits, but I usually only get direct smacks like that in fever dreams.
#6. The dream had moments of near-lucidity that excite me. First, when I brushed the snow from my leg, I thought it odd because I knew I'd dreamt that it was fall. Second, when I saw the old closet, I recognized it as a bit of a dream because I'd left that house behind. Third, when the dog poked its head up at me from the aquarium, it blinked and I blinked and I thought, "Why did I dream that?"
In my dream, I was walking to my destination through the mildly upclass streets of the Central West End, with its nicely sized lots, well-kept brick houses, big leafy trees and quiet streets. The trees were in autumn colors, the tree bark and asphalt were damp but it was not rainy; I think, time-wise, it was late October or early November. I don't remember my destination, but I was in no particular rush to get there, and was enjoying the stroll in the meantime.
As I passed one house, an old man yelled at someone else nearby that they needed to get off of / stay away from his property. He used a nasty epithet for the person--dirty Jew, I believe--and appeared to be well satisfied with himself for it. It put a damper on my pleasant day out, and I decided to take a short-cut down a sidestreet to get away from the little old bastard.
My short-cut continued into a boxy office building with a wing made of glass which I thought had an exit at the opposite end. In the little glass room was the secretarial pool, typing away, and the room itself turned out to be a dead end--and the suits were coming! There was a small door to the outside, tucked into a door behind some clutter, but it dropped five feet down straight to lawn; the builders had considered it useless, the girls explained, and hadn't seen reason to provide steps or a porch. I was very nervous at being found where I didn't belong but the secretaries said there was no other way out but the way I'd come, so while one delayed the execs, I shimmied out of the small glass door and took off across the lawn.
At the street I worried that the office detour had taken me far off course but fortunately I was only a block from where I'd wanted to end up. A church was on the way, not a tall stony Catholic-looking CHURCH but a small, bland and stuccoed Protestant shoebox, with little faux stained glass bats taped to the windows and in the crook of pillars. Holiday decorations! This so interested me that I thought I'd cut through the church on the way.
Once inside, I realized that there was a sermon in progress and got nervous at the thought of interrupting anything or being recognized. I crawled on hands and knees to a pew near the front and sat in the aisle, on the floor, pretending to sing hymns with everyone else. As I brushed snow from my leg, a toddler wobbled over to me and began to climb on me. Her ineffectual adult hovered nearby, twittering and wringing her hands and otherwise not at all reigning the child in.
Afterwards I wandered to a refreshments table and poured myself a little punch, and the child (now six or seven-ish, not a toddler), followed me with her adult in tow. The woman waffled on how kids are, doncha know, and how people complain that her granddaughter is rude or spoiled because they don't understand how to deal with kids. With all intentions of doing a good thing (I swear it!), I asked if the granddaughter was the girl in question, "because, if she is, I have to tell you, as the person she was using as a jungle gym there, she really is obnoxious. I mean, no offense or anything, but you should know, I think."
This did not go over well.
As she huffed and left, a redneck fella behind me joked that the minister had been looking for him, and asked me not to give him away. I noticed that he was sitting on the rail of my closet door at my old house, and said I'd keep his secret. His friend walked up and looked into the closet. I felt a twang of annoyance at people going into my space, then the guy remarked on the crow in the closet.
Crow? CROW! I'd forgotten to take the crow with me when I moved!
I ran over and pulled out the large aquarium with the crow in it, panicking over how I could have forgotten it in the move and how long it had been without water. I shoved the aquarium into a cluttered corner and ran off to find it food and water. As I headed for the kitchen of my old house, I noticed several of the guy's kids sitting at my computer, and I blew a gasket at them. I demanded to know what they thought they were doing, I ripped their cords from my computer, and I screamed at them as they stalked off. Then I stormed into the cluttered, cluttered kitchen, poking around, moving things to move things to get to things in order to move things to get to other things, until I found a box of bird-shaped dog biscuits. I tossed a few into the cage but it already had some uneaten in the bottom. I also noticed, with great surprise, that there was now a dove in the tank, as well as a small lizard and a larger lizard/snake that appeared to be harassing the crow.
Notes and explanations
#1. I used to attend school in the Central West End. We meandered the streets a fair bit between classes.
#2. The office building reminds me of the CWE library, though I can't remember the name of that branch and haven't been there in many, many years. In similar fashion, the church reminds me of Oak Hill Presbyterian in Tower Grove Heights (or is it Oak Hill? Stupid tiny subneighborhoods!) despite looking almost nothing like it.
#3. I still have no clue where I was supposed to be going. I was almost there, though, before being thrown back into the old house abruptly.
#4. The tank with the crow in it is, in waking life, a vivarium with a number of frogs in it.
#5. A number of individual elements might be traced to waking life conversation snippets, like a customer who mentioned releasing a crow who'd had a broken wing, or a Snopes bit on prayer being banned at Steak'n'Shake. I see hints of this when I re-read these bits, but I usually only get direct smacks like that in fever dreams.
#6. The dream had moments of near-lucidity that excite me. First, when I brushed the snow from my leg, I thought it odd because I knew I'd dreamt that it was fall. Second, when I saw the old closet, I recognized it as a bit of a dream because I'd left that house behind. Third, when the dog poked its head up at me from the aquarium, it blinked and I blinked and I thought, "Why did I dream that?"
