Art, Inspiration & the Push (Part II).

It took some time for her to become a point of focus — and there are levels to it. For one thing, she has transformed into a rather alluring goth over the years, a feel and look that has always inspired my passion with respect to women, at least when it’s authentic, and in her case, it most certainly is — hence Gerty’s insight so long ago that she was right up my alley.

Physically, to state the obvious, she’s hot as fuck. I have cast her in the starring role of countless kinky fantasies of mine over the years. She is also someone who, as seems clear to me from her Facebook posts, actually thinks for herself — a depressing rarity among the human population, it seems to me — and she is a rather rebellious soul in general, which only increases her attractiveness as far as I’m concerned.

And artistically, to get to the point, she’s fucking amazing. One day recently, as I was bored at work, I was scrolling down my Facebook feed when I discovered she had dumped a load of her artwork online. I scrolled through it and was truly amazed. Alongside her darkness and beauty, she has astounding artistic talent. I’d known this for awhile, and at some point even confessed to her online how I envied her ability to draw the female figure, and draw it so expertly, but had never seen so much of her artwork at once.

It gave my brain a boner. I should have bought her a drink, danced with her, got caught in her web. If a girl cam give both your brain and body a boner, after all, that’s something you should embrace.

Another life lesson, hopefully learned.

In any case, that helped inspire me out of my artistic slumber to some degree, at least with respect to,the underlying and fueling urge, but it also made me feel as though my own talents utterly paled in comparison.

Which again, we shall come to later.

Other inspiration came from a place closer to home, however. This inspiration shit has really covered the spectrum.

Some time ago my mother, sisters, and some old friends began attending these classes at a winery. As far as I’m aware, it essentially deals with sipping wine and being taught how to paint in a hands-on fashion.

Then, likely inspired by this, one of my sister’s friends — Mickey, who is Gerty’s older sister — started holding parties where everyone would watch an episode of Bob Ross and paint along with him. I believe I was invited at least once to one of them, but predictably, I never attended. I’m rather antisocial, for one thing, and producing art in front of others strikes me as rather nervewracking.

Three cheers for introversion and anxiety.

Eve, the eldest of my two younger sisters, has always been very talented musically, a form of art I’ve at best dabbled in through gutair and piano but certainly never taken the time to discipline and develop. Similarly, she never really pursued the visual arts that much.

Until recently, that is.

I’m sure the winery thing and the Bob Ross parties got the ball rolling, but she’s been going through a tough breakup with her exboyfriend, with whom she shares a house, and has found a new outlet in drinking wine and exploring painting. On that note, I’m incredibly happy for her — I know creative expression serves not only as catharsis, but as a transformative force; a sort of psychological and spiritual form of alchemy.

She needs this.

And as has been revealed through her posting her work on Facebook, her talents are improving with nearly every piece.

Rock on, my sis.

Yet like a selfish, sensitive little child, however, I began to feel this envy and jealousy creep up. Like with squeaks. Like with the luscious and seductive Maria Cox. Given this familiar, childish reaction, I feared a pattern I’ve begun to identify in myself was doomed to play itself out.

Someone shows me up, or at least I feel they show me up, and rather than use it to motivate myself to do better or at least try harder I break down, accept defeat, and run away like a weak, pathetic coward. Rather than perceive them as an inspiration, I perceive them as better and accept defeat.

Not exactly what one would call a winning strategy.

It didn’t used to be like this with me, either. When I was a child, even a teenager in high school, I could appreciate the creative talents of others without judging myself against them. After all, it isn’t supposed to be about winning a goddamn conpetition, its supposed to be about working to perfect your own art and feeling that intrinsic satisfaction in the process and, in the best case scenario, feel that life-is-worth-living sense of satisfaction in the result as well.

So we come to my last weekend.

For some time I’ve wanted to take up the practice of oil painting, as I haven’t painted much at all since I was a kid and the stories about painting along with old Bob Ross episodes sounded fucking wonderful to me. While I’ve enjoyed my chalk pastel works, I find I’ve grown bored with them. Everything looks the same and it simply doesn’t inspire the passion and produce that sense of satisfaction it once did.

So for about a week or two now I’ve been amassing a folder on YouTube dedicated to art, hoping it might not only inspire me to produce more art, but also inspire me explore media and techniques I either haven’t explored in eons or perhaps never explored before.

The issue is that I’ve been watching countless YouTube videos — Bob Ross mostly, but more recently videos regarding techniques, supplies, tricks, and things to avoid — but I’ve been doing nothing with it. Just trying to store up data in my head. I kept telling myself: just fucking do it. If it sucks, and I expect that at the very least it initially will, no one has to see it. Then try again. Showing off isn’t the objective here. I had already made the decision not to post any artwork on social media for awhile, as I don’t want the influence, be it likes or the lack thereof. What I want, what I need, is the satisfaction of creative expression, art for the sake of art, at least predominantly.

This last Friday and Saturday, my days off of work, I felt very low. It seemed as though I was on the brink of depression but never quite slipped into it and instead remained locked in this neutral, indifferent state where nothing seemed to move me at all, nothing really maintained my interest or fired up my passions. I drank Friday and then refused to allow myself to do so on Saturday, instead just drinking coffee and smoking a bit of weed.

On Saturday, I felt as if I had to really push myself to do anything. I watched Joker, which was incredibly depressing, though an excellent film — not unlike Requiem for a Dream in that respect. Later, I had the supplies laid out on my counter nearby my laptop — paper, paint, cups of water, a small canvas board — but did nothing with it for what seemed like forever. I went back to watching the art videos.

Finally, I got enough caffeine and cannabis in my system and mentally pushed myself to play. I was soon to discover that some of the paints were really old. When I squeezed the tubes of those elder acrylics the result was an ejaculation of clear goo sprinkled sparsely with particles of the relevant color. Thankfully the new ones, save for the brown for some reason, were still good. Its just that there were only five of them, which was not a wide selection.

I had some oil paint, which is what I really wanted to try (Bob Ross inspired my interest here quite directly), but I didn’t have any paint thinner for the brushes, I didn’t have any liquid white, and I had to be very careful with my money until I got my check. So I did the best with what I had, at least to the extent that my inner numbness would allow, and that involved playing with acrylics.

As predicted, I produced nothing of value, but I got more of a feel for the brushes and paints on the canvas, so I saw the activity as valuable nonetheless. Afraid that my attempt at using acrylics and the sad result might discourage me and turn me further away from art, after I was done with the paint I decided to try some other form of art. I remembered I had some Sculpey and tried molding a face as I simultaneously watched Djangu on my Roku. Then I dug out some charcoal pencils, took out my sketchbook and tried drawing.

Again, nothing I physically produced was great, not in the least, but I felt better knowing I was sort of pushing myself at gunpoint to do something artistic. Even if I wasn’t inspired.

I’ve drifted too far from this world of art, its been too long, and I need to find my way back and push myself to evolve this time. I need to keep writing, too, but it’s just not enough anymore.

Art, Inspiration & the Push (Part I).

For some time, I’ve missed the kind of focus I used to have with respect to producing art. Its not that I dislike writing, which I’ve invested more time and energy in over recent years, its just that it doesn’t produce the same kind of satisfaction, scratch the same kind of itches in the same places that art always did for me. And I’m itching like a flea-infested fuck wearing a sweater straightjacket coverall.

And as for all my enduring focus on writing, has it really improved my writing as a result? I still screw up tenses. Fuck up spelling. I fear a lot of my writing fails to have adequate focus and structure. I can’t write fiction worth a damn. And my attempts at writing a book about my strange, seemingly paranormal experiences?

That’s all clearly gone to shit.

To make matters worse, I’ve failed even more at further developing my art, and I can’t seem to get over this hump. Or perhaps “climb this mountain” is more adequate. And this, this despite my inspiration lately: inspiration that, if I manage it the right way, might light a fire under my ass and get me pouring my soul through imagery again in new and different ways.

This inspiration has come from at least three sources.

One is Squeaks, a young girl I work with. She has a dark, bitter, judgmental part of her, but she conveys it in this giddy, childlike way that amuses me. Her voice frequently gets painfully high-pitched, however, at least to my hypersentive ears, hence the name I’ve given her.

She is yet another child of abusive, otherwise negligent parents that clearly should not have been parents, though thankfully she lives with her boyfriend — who I call Count on account of the legitimate, natural fangs that motherfucker has — who seems like a good kid that truly cares for her. Unfortunately his home life isn’t the greatest, either.

At the very least, they have each other, though, and I think they make a good team.

Whenever she works in back drive thru I catch her doodling on a sheet of paper or a napkin — though calling them doodles doesn’t seem to convey the degree of skill she has. I’ve also seen her sketchbook — but again, to call them mere sketches…

She draws these spectacular cartoons. She often starts with lines and shapes and then starts building on the details as they always teach in art courses. I should probably do more of that. They are high-grade cartoons, for sure, and the way she colors them, often but not always using the computer, makes them look professional as fuck as well.

It makes me happy that it brings so much joy to her despite the endless onslaught of pain in her life, too, and though she has no interest in pursuing it through college or a career, I hope she eventually changes her mind and decides to invest her undeniable talent in some way that brings satisfaction to her. And perhaps even brings joy and inspiration to others in the process.

After all, as I believe I’ve made clear by this point: her artistic talents have clearly brought joy and inspiration to me…

Though admittedly, also envy and jealousy. Which well come back to. But there are, as I said, still other sources of inspiration.

There is, for instance, this girl I know from high school; she was a grade or two behind me. I’ll call her Maria Cox. I knew her brother, Johnny Cox, who was in my class. I also knew her close friend, Gerty, who was an anxious girl with a rapid-fire mind with whom I got along pretty well. I never got to know Maria too well, however, and despite affectionately calling her “Little Cox” whenever I got the chance, I don’t think she was too amused by it. Nor do I feel subsequent interactions made her perspective on me any better. Still, I always liked her — though, at least consciously, not to the degree that I do presently.

I remember little of her in high school save for the school dances I attended. While each dance held its own particular flavor of drama, a rather consistent element was that Maria would always end up along the wall, in the darkness of the gym, crying. Typically, or at least I always assumed, some ass-hat of guy she had come with had ditched her or in some way broke her heart.

I always felt bad for her. I always felt the urge to comfort her.

Even so, I never got to know her too well. I saw her now and then after graduation, but for the most part, only in passing.

I bumped into her once in a nearby town and she asked to borrow fifty bucks; I lent it to her. This was back when I was far more naive than I am today and still tried to trust and believe in people. She promised to repay me, and it was some time before I saw her again.

When I did, I was hanging out in a booth in a fast food restaraunt, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and writing in my notebook, as I often did. She came in the door, walked right passed me without so much as a glance, and sat a few booths behind me with one or two other people. They said something to her I couldn’t quite hear, but her response?

That I overheard.

It was essentially that “his” parents were rich, that “he” didn’t need the money, both of which are untrue, and so on — essentially providing a list of excuses to the others as to why she need not pay me back. That I found more than a bit douche-like and it soured me towards her for some time.

I can be a bitter, grudge-holding douche.

The next time I saw her was a good time later, and it stands as the last time I saw her as of the time of this writing.

I found myself at a bar with some friends and found out that one of the guys I went to school with was the lead singer in a metal band. We talked for awhile on the porch and then I meandered back inside. That’s where I saw this sexy, darkly-dressed girl expertly, seductively slow-dancing with some guy. It took me a moment to realize it was Maria.

In retrospect, I recall her looking good. Really fucking good.

Shortly thereafter she approached me and asked if I wanted to buy her a drink; I confessed I had no money (which I believe was true) and left it at that. Ever since, I’ve regretted not taking her up on her offer.

At some point after I got on Facebook years upon years ago she came to be on my friends list. Though I can’t recall at what point she became insatiable to me, it must have been some time after that. I remember seeing Gerty at some point after joining the Book of Faces and she said with confidence she knew who I thought was hot, she knew who I wanted to fuck. I asked her who, and when she mentioned Maria, I flatly denied it.

Gerty’s response conveyed that she thought this impossible. Not unlikely, mind you, but downright bloody impossible. Every guy wanted to fuck Maria, she seemed to believe, and on top of that Gerty knew she was right up my alley — evidently before I was able to consciously acknowledge it myself.

Maybe I still held a grudge at some level over what I overheard her say that day in the restaurant and denied my intense attraction towards her to myself, burying it far from consciousness.

It did not remain there, however.

Of Love & Self-Loathing.

9/29/20

This morning, I awoke to find that Terra had messaged me:

“What do you think it is like or how it feels to truly be loved or cherished for being your unique self in a relationship?”

Though its not precisely what she was talking about for reasons I will explain, to a large degree, I think I had that when I was with Anne, I was just too naive to fully realize it at the time. She accepted me for who I was, but I didn’t like who I was, so I almost felt threatened, for I feared if I began to accept myself as she did I would never change.

Anne was intelligent and ambitious, beautiful and sexy, hypersexual and unashamed. This bitch was a fearless and independent individual that needed no one, but for some apparently insane reason truly loved me. She knew not only how to adapt to external conditions with ease and expertize, but to self-overcome in the Nietzschean sense. She was an ubermench with a pussy. At the end of the day, it was survival — physical, psychological — that drove her, that spurred her on.

She had decided to join the Army. She had married, had a beautiful, intelligent and unique child, and then elected to work toward becoming a nurse. Then, in the midst of a separation between her and her husband and baby-daddy, she had decided to come visit me, and our relationship blossomed again.

And then I ended it. And I had so many excuses. Or were they legitimate reasons, no matter how ultimately misguided I judged them to be?

I was afraid of riding her coattails for the rest of my life, of relying on her and remaining static in terms of growth, of being less of a partner and more like a second child she would have to raise. I couldn’t stand the fucking thought, so I ended it. Ended us.

So it wouldn’t just be about being in a relationship with someone who cherished you — in fact, that might make you run the other way unless you cherished yourself as well.

Given you both cherish yourselves and one another, I imagine it would be liberating beyond words. To be with someone you don’t have to hide yourself around, someone who respects your honesty, values what you think and feel no matter how light or dark, is okay with your sexual kinks, shares or at least supports your hopes and dreams — it would be relaxing, warm, guilt-free and without fear. You’d feel truly and entirely connected with at least one other person, which must be amazing, and make life worth living.

I can hardly imagine…

Anxiety Dreams (9/26/20 & 9/28/20).

9/26/20,
7:02 PM.

It appeared that I was in an apartment kind of like mine with at least three people very close to me. There was a lot of discussion and moving about. Someone had given me amnesia and those around me seemed to be acting as if it hadn’t happened, though I’m not certain they were in on it. I played dumb, pretending that I remembered even less than I did, however, and even pretended that I didn’t know that I’d had amnesia. At one point, I even falsely claimed to be confused about what day it was.

I wasn’t entirely sure where this dream came from. My parents had come up earlier that day and I’d gotten insufficient sleep, hence the nap afterward that gave birth to this dream. They visited to drop off their truck, which they’re letting me use until either they purchase a vehicle for me or one for themselves, at which point I’ll inherit the truck. I was driving the cursed car Friday, the previous day, when the brake pedal went to the floor.

In any case, perhaps they were represented by two of the three people in the dream, but damned if I know who the third person was supposed to be.

9/28/20

Its dark out. I’m walking down the sidewalk passed countless people going in the other direction, and evidently I was heading to work (though its not nearly close enough in real life for me to walk there). I suddenly realize that I forgot my bookbag, however, and at that point the scene abruptly changes.

I’m now suddenly at work. I’m standing just outside the open driver side door of the truck, which is running, and its parked at the side of the dumpster closest to the building with the truck pointing toward road. I decide to move the truck, to back it into a parking space so I can just pull out when I leave. The parking spaces by the dumpster are arranged differently, however, with a set arranged in front of the corral doors and a set facing the corral doors. There are other cars parked in some of the spaces. I decide to back into one of the spaces facing the corral.

When I step into the truck and sit down in the driver seat, that’s when the lucidity abruptly kicks in. Everything seems hyperreal and my consciousness is very acute. In the context of the dream, I’m confused, wondering if my consciousness felt so altered because I was drunk and high, which would clearly indicate I shouldn’t drive. I try to convince myself that I’m just moving the vehicle a bit, that i,should be able to manage it, but I suddenly feel very resistant. Then the alarm goes off and yanks me out of the dream.

Forgetting things is supposedly a telltale sign of an anxiety dream. Though its not exactly amnesia, as in the first dream, forgetting my book bag and suddenly remembering it as I walked to work could be a different manifestation of the same thing: losing memories, losing baggage.

As for my lucidity, it tends to happen (and I’m more apt to remember dreams I’d had in general) when I have broken sleep, and I certainly did this morning. In this case it seemed to kick into gear when I sat down in the truck and I felt some anxiety.

Is adrenaline what triggers my lucidity, or does it stand at least as one of my triggers? Is that why it happens so often when I’m inside a car in my dreams — as driving causes so much anxiety in waking life? Or why real-life anxiety, often enough about my car, often seems to trigger my lucid dreams and false awakenings?

Aims Discerned at a Low Point.

9/15/20.

As of late, I’ve been attempting to slow down on the drinking again, so have been doing so every other day. Monday night, I drank three 24s and woke up abruptly the next morning, angry that I’d yet again posted on Facebook under the influence. Nothing horribly bad, but as often happens, the moment I slipped out of my dream my viscious, automatic thoughts kicked in, fueled by intense, self-loathing emotions. I cursed myself aloud and vividly imagined punching myself in the face, stabbing myself, and so on.

I got out of bed and made breakfast, as despite having gotten only about four hours of sleep — which, given the booze, didn’t exactly constitute sleep — I couldn’t relax myself enough to doze back off. I posted nothing on Facebook all day. I didn’t have a hit of weed on break, as I often do. I was dragging feet all day at work, drowning in depression, misery, and self-hatred, and only began coming out of it in the fourth quarter of my shift.

On my mind all fucking day?

Dismantled thoughts on how I need to get my shit together. This involved a few key areas in my life.

On the top of the list, of course, is the drinking.

I really tried to be honest with myself when I asked myself the question: Why do I drink? I do it to escape from the ego, to not care about things to the point of depressive and self-loathing agony and anxiety to the point of paralysis as I tend to do, to be temporarily happy and be motivated to create — even if the creations, typically poetry, often embarrass me upon sobering up and awakening.

The negative aspects of drinking are pretty damn plentiful, however. Waking up and feeling like shit, not remembering things I watched on YouTube or Roku, my embarrassing texts, messages, and Facebook posts which I always promise myself, while sober, that I will no longer make. Sadly, drunk me doesn’t always feel obligated to keep those sober vows.

And I always damn myself for breaking those promises rather relentlessly upon awakening, even if whatever I wrote or posted wasn’t objectively bad. It doesn’t seem to matter. I still feel embarrassed and ashamed about it, I still fall down a spiral of self-loathing.

Honestly, I think Buddhist thought helps explain some of this. With respect to thoughts, emotions and sensations, Buddhism holds that there are typically two potential reactions we default to: we pull them close and engage with them, or we disengage and push them away.

The problem with disengagement is the horrific rebound effect. Thoughts and emotions seem attached to the ego like fucking elastic, as the better you are at pushing them away and the longer you are capable of doing so, the more violently they snap back. Drinking seems to function a lot like pushing them away, as too often after sobering up, even while asleep, the vicious nature of my automatic, judgmental thoughts and the wretched intensity of the emotions associated with them strike back at me with uncompromising vengeance.

As long as we’re talking about bad habits and potential addictions, there’s also the issue of Facebook.

There are positives about Facebook, of course. I can connect with people my antisocial ass may have never communicated with again, I can lift my depression at work through finding funny memes and then share them with others. The negatives may outweigh the benefits, however. I’m simply on there too much, constantly checking to see if their are any likes or comments. It seems to feed my already-present issue of caring too much about what other people think. So I’m clearly addicted to social media.

Then there’s the job.

There are things I like and appreciate about my fast food job. Currently, I like almost all the people I work with. I’m trusted, and the nature of my job as night shift detail maintenance man gives me a lot of freedom: I can smoke essentially whenever I want, I work alone so there’s no boss always looming over my shoulder, and I can escape people and go outside more or less when I desire.

Even so, its far passed time that I move on.

My aim should probably be a factory job, but I fear I would hate it even more than my fast food job. That was certainly the case with the only factory job I’ve ever had. Still, that’s where the money is at, and though I’ve never been much of a materialist, I require those funds for true independence.

I can’t keep relying on my parents to bail me out financially. I have to find out a way that I can stand on my own two feet. My parents won’t be around forever, and I don’t want them to die still concerned about my well-being, either. I’m going to be 42 in November. This has gotten light years beyond pathetic. Its time to get a big boy job.

There are, of course, issues and obstacles here. In all liklihood, it would have to be a no-experience-necessary, entry-level position. On top of that, I would probably have to quit smoking weed and taking CBD. Drinking wouldn’t be a problem with respect to getting job, but it is a problem, as I said, and if pot is taken away, I fear I’d fall into reliance on booze even harder. I could get on antidepressants again, but they can be pricey, they require those loathsome doctor visits. That and my general distrust of the pharmaceutical industry makes me wary.

Being 2020 and all, there is also the pandemic to take into account. Its not a great time to seek out a new job. If my car breaks down now, my job isn’t as likely to fire my ass and I know people that might be able to provide rides until I get it fixed. If I get a new job and this happens, particularly if it happens in a probationary period, if it simply causes me to be late I might be fucked, much less if I have to call off, and no one may be available to provide me with rides. Then I’d be out of a job. In other words, I’d be even worse off than I am now.

Which brings me to my need to move, preferably closer to my family.

While I prefer rural areas, I also hate driving, and so like the convenience of being able to walk places. So if I could get an apartment or trailer in small town where my job was within walking distance, that would be optimal. That way if my car went to shit I still had the capacity to make money, even if I didn’t immediately have the money to get it fixed.

Last but not least, there is my issue with change in general.

I want to try and change again, but I’ve had massive fucking issues in past. You know how someone can make empty promises, lie to you or let you down only so many times before, however much you might care for and want to believe in the person, you just can’t trust them, rely on them, believe them, lie faith in them anymore?

That’s how I’ve come to feel about myself.

Zombie Girls.

It been three days now since I remembered so much as the vaguest portion of a dream.

9/19/20.

I believe I’m at work when a girl walks in the door and comes around the corner. I know her and find her beautiful, but am taken aback by how good she looks in the black dress she’s wearing.

9/20/20.

Its daylight and I’m either walking around or riding a bike or something, and I’m passing by this crowd of people on the street. Out of the crowd steps Claire, who seemed happy to see me, and we have a short conversation.

I awoke from that last dream frustrated that Claire was back in my head again. At the very least Kara has seemed to have faded away from my waking life. When she quit, she deleted me from Facebook and then a new Facebook account of hers kept popping up in my suggested friends maybe a week later. I ignored it and eventually it went away.

Today, shortly after I started my shift they threw me back in kitchen for awhile, assembling sandwiches. I peeked out into the lobby and saw a beautiful, dark-haired girl in a red flannel sitting at the booth by the door. She looked a bit like Kara. She seemed to be filling out an application. Great, I thought, another beautiful girl I’m going to fixate on like an idiot. Shortly thereafter, the girl steps behind counter.

It was Kara. She’s back. She’s starting tomorrow.

Zombie girls. That’s what Claire and Kara are. They won’t stay dead to me.

I was as happy to see her just as I was happy to see Claire in the dream, but in both cases I’m simply not happy that I’m happy about it. I’m sick of the infantile jealousy, the greedy desires — I’ve just had enough of it. And I’m so tired of external factors dictating my internal states.

Even if self-transformation is unachievable for me, some control over my emotions would be fucking nice.

Doorways (9/17/20 to 9/18/20 Dreams).

This short-lived dream-theme of doorways began with the opening scene to a dream I had the day before:

9/17/20.

A small group of us are crashing at someone’s house. I remember being in a clean and tidy room room with two beds, sun illuminating the room brightly as I lay in a bed with white sheets. For some reason, the room reminded me of the bedroom of the eldest of my two younger sisters when she still lived with my parents. Though I don’t recall the nature of the sounds, I heard something just beyond the closed door, perhaps someone coming up the nearby stairs.

9/18/20.

It was less a dream and more like an enduring, boring scene. It wasn’t a static image, but might as well have been. At different angles I watched as two guys in black suits were waiting patiently and quietly in some apartment or hotel room for someone to show. It felt like a covert operation, maybe leading to an arrest or assassination. Though its fuzzy, there was also something regarding a list of things etched in a strange language upon wood of some sort.

After awakening from the dream, I had breakfast and a friend picked me up and we fished for about two hours. Upon arriving home, I did some grocery shopping and, feeling tired from insufficient sleep, decided to take a nap, from which I awakened at 10:13 PM. I then remembered another dream:

I was before a thick, wooden door in a dimly-lit area. I was trying to find the lock as well as the key, which were hidden in or around the door, as well as find a clue to finding the next door. I think the doors dealt with time travel, and that they were akin to the doors in the second Matrix film, which is to say they were like portals. Though I believe there was more to the dream than this scene, this scene seemed to carry on forever, was incredibly frustrating, and I was still unable to accomplish the task by the end of the dream.

Doors are supposed to represent secrecy, mystery, change, opportunities and transitions in life. The fact that the theme of mystery was associated with the doors in each of the three dreams — hearing something of uncertain nature in the first, the covert operation and strange language in the second, looking for the key, the lock, and clues in the second — seems consistent. Though the door was only locked in the last dream so far as I’m aware, the alleged meaning of a locked door is that one has goals beyond one’s reach.

This, at least, resonates with the mood of frustration in the last two dreams.

Two Dreams & a Religious Theme.

9/17/20.

Its now evening and we were all walking somewhere, either to or from the house we were staying at. I seem to be the only one who notices a young girl who was part of our group sneaking away, running down the road (or maybe riding a bicycle) into the darkness. I first see her in the distance, down the road, turning to the left. I’m worried about her and, without informing the others, take off after her.

Ultimately I follow her to this house where she was secretly meeting with this skinny old man. Though his ethnicity is ambiguous, he’s clearly not Caucasion, and my sense is that he constitutes something like the girls secret informant. I first saw him after approaching the girl, I think after following her in through the window of the place. I’m sitting down across from her when I turn around to look behind me, where I find him looming above me, eyeing me suspiciously, initially very wary of me.

This is where the sense that he was a secret informant came from, I think, as it reminds me of those scenes in shows and movies where a person meeting another person in secret brings along a second party without permission and the secret informant in paranoia is angry at what he feels is a betrayal.

In any case, I either say or do something and he immediately warms up to me — seems to really like me, in fact, almost as if he’s suddenly very excited I had crossed paths with him. Without warning or discussion, he begins conducting some ritual on me, like an initiation ritual, which seems centered on touching and moving his hands around my head, the center of my forehead more than anything, and as he did so I seem to recall him saying things in a language I did not understand. I feel a little wary about this, slightly uncomfortable with this circumstance, but I just kind of go with it. For some reason it makes me think of Judaism, but I have no idea why.

Its still dark out when I come back from following her, and I come back alone. I have difficulty finding the house we were staying at, which isn’t out of the ordinary, given the circumstances and my total lack of any sense of direction. The place, I knew, was among the houses along this particular suburban street (which remind me of an earlier dream: Passenger) — and specifically one among a set of small, single-floor homes that look more like apartments (despite the fact that a two story house was suggested earlier, in the bedroom scene). They’re all beside one another and look nearly identical.

I’m afraid of going to the wrong one, and I think the specific fear was that somebody may shoot me. Even if I find the right one, though, I fear that they won’t welcome me back. I think of using my phone to Facebook message Marjie, one of the assistant managers from work, for some reason — presumably, she was part of the group.

The religious aspect of the dream makes me think of another dream I had recently.

8/28/20.

I’m in a small room attached to a much larger dining room. There is an elevated area to the side of the room situated in what could perhaps be best described as a closet without doors. At the center of the elevated area is something that looks like a bird bath — it has a base, a long neck, and a wide, shallow bowl at the top. Just behind it there is a window, through which the sun is shining brightly. I’m in this room, looking at it as I smoke a cigarette, and there is this strange guy in there with me, and I don’t like being around him. His vibe makes me uncomfortable. I don’t recall if he was smoking as well, but he did tell me that this was a “place of worship.”

Suddenly, I look out the doorway and see a lady at a table in the dining room and she’s choking. In response, he runs out there, but I don’t see him helping her. Instead, he starts waving a gun around. Still smoking, I get up on the elevated area and hide in the corner. I have my phone on me and, of all things, consider making a fucking Facebook status about it. I look around the corner to discover the door is now closed, though shortly thereafter it opens and someone waves for me to come out.

After I wake up, I feel ashamed about my response, ashamed I didn’t stand up to the creepy guy or help save the choking woman.

Passenger (9/14/20 Dream).

Though I sensed there were more people in the car, there were at least two of us — some guy who was driving and myself, who I think was in the passenger seat. It was a dark night and we were driving down this quiet, barely-lit stretch of road in a suburban-looking neighborhood. Houses of various types and sizes lined the road, and he wanted us to choose which one we were going to rent, which confused me. I thought we had to pay first and then they assigned us one, but he says we can find the one we want, then pay.

My most immediate interpretation was that someone else is in control, that someone else is behind the wheelof my life — fear, for instance, some shadow aspect of my psyche, or just other people in general. Looking deeper, it may suggest that I’m rather passive with respect to problems, too, and that this control may be being given away. Both suggestions seem further reinforced by the fact that in the dream I thought that we had to pay first and would then be assigned a house. The other guy planned on choosing a house first, then paying, which suggests he’s behind the wheel in a less literal sense as well, even in the context of the dream.

Turning a New Leaf (9/9/20 & 9/11/20 Dreams).

9/11/20

When I awoke, I strove to recall everything about my dream that I could.

I recall hanging out with a girl, primarily in a forest during the daytime. At some point we came up to a tree stump that had been partially carved into and hollowed out, and I think there were things kept inside there, though I’m certainly fuzzy on this point. Elsewhere in the dream, we were lounging around outside, presumably still in the forest, and I was sitting way back, sprawled out in my chair nearby the girl, who was doing essentially her own version of the same thing in her chair. I kept forgetting and then realizing that I wasn’t wearing any pants, just my briefs — which is precisely how I slept last night — but was never concerned about it around her.

The dream itself as a whole reminded me of many of the many dreams I had in my very early teens, which also often took place in the forest, mostly due to the light, joyous, playful and relaxing kind of mood that those dreams embodied. I hadn’t felt that in a dream, so far as I recall — and certainly not in real life — for an unimaginably long period of time.

When trying to discern who the girl was after awakening, which was, aside from the hollowed-out tree stump, the focal point of my curiosity, I focused on how I felt around her. I felt very close to her, very connected and comfortable. I wasn’t trying to hide myself, I wasn’t worrying about how she perceived me or concerned to the level of paranoia regarding how I made her feel. It was just warm, easygoing, natural and nice. I felt calm and happy.

It made me think primarily of my long-time, gothic friend, Terra, though I also thought of Penny, as both make me feel very similar when I’m around them. I don’t think it was either of them, however, and perhaps no one I actually know in my waking life.

A quick search to guide my exploration into the meaning of the potential symbols provided interpretations that were actually quite intuitive and resonated deeply with each other and the overall mood of the dream. Trees are symbols of life and connectivity. With respect to life, the roots wind down into the past, the branches spread outward and upward, towards the future, and the trunk, linking both, represents the present.

To dream of a forest is supposed to represent a desire for connection, which certainly resonates with the mood of the dream and how the girl made me feel. The alleged meaning of the partially hollowed out tree stump was less intuitive to me, but certainly resonates with my waking life, specifically the vague recollection I had of a dream the day before yesterday (9/9/20) and the surrounding events, thoughts and emotions. Its supposed to symbolize something, such as a relationship, having recently come to an end, that something is missing from your life, or both.

I began writing about it on the day it all happened, but felt hesitant about finishing and sharing it, though it seems appropriate enough in this context.

9/9/20

Its been a year and a few months since I spoke with Claire, and though she has crossed my mind now and then, I simply don’t allow myself to engage with the thoughts. I no longer permit myself to care. Its a futile game I simply refuse to play anymore — consciously or, so far as I have been aware, even unconsciously, in the land of dreams, and my dream recall has returned the last few months without any clear sign of Claire’s presence. Even the suggestion of her. Until this morning, September 9th, the day before her fucking birthday.

I didn’t clearly remember the dream, I only recalled vague suggestions, but it didn’t deal with her or I interacting. It did deal with her and I, however. Specifically the apparent fact that she felt the same way about me as I did about her — essentially that the end had come and there was no sense in continuing any emotional investment in the friendship, in even entertaining the thought that it may eventually become something more. To the contrary, we would probably never see or talk to each other ever again.

Roughly 25 years of knowing each other and its simply dead, dead, deadinski.

Though it’s vague, the scene left me with the sense that I was eavesdropping on her having a conversation about me, or eavesdropping on someone else having a conversation about her and I. It seemed like I was viewing it from a distance, too, which reminds me of an element in one of my apparent telepathic experiences with Eva back in the day, though I’m not making the leap in assumption and concluding that’s what happened here.

Though it wasn’t as if there was much to write down regarding this dream, or this vague fragment of a dream, I’ve taken notes on less. Even so, I failed to write a word about it until now. The reason is clear: I honestly didn’t want to write about her ever again. At least not for awhile. I didn’t want to conjure up any potentially buried emotions, open up any healing wounds, or anything of that nature. Just let it stay behind me. Let it be obscured in the dust as I tear down that dirt road, leaving it all in the past, refusing so much as a mere glance in the rearview.

So I ran some erronds, went to work, did my shit, and then, after night fell and the fast food joint was busy as hell, cars wrapped around the drive-thru, as I was taking the gondola full of trash out to the dumpster corral, I hear my name being called.

For whatever reason, this is not unusual. I assumed that it was either a coworker seeking my help or someone in drive thru who saw me and wanted to say hello. It turned out that it was someone in the passenger seat of an SUV, wearing a black winters cap over her black, shoulder-length hair, looking out at me from the open window. I tried to discern the face from the distance. At about the same time I realized who it was, she yells, “Its Kara.”

“You coming back?” I knew damned well she wasn’t.

“Nope,” she said. “Sorry, bud.”

You’re tragically beautiful, I think to myself. I really like you, so go fuck yourself.

“Its nice to see you,” I tell her, and I wasn’t entirely lying, for it was, in a way.

In another way it was utterly maddening, however. Endlessly frustrating. Recently, she abruptly quit her job over the phone, claiming that she was going to admit herself to a mental institution again, and then blocked me (at the very least) on Facebook.

That’s the second time she’s blocked me, and by no fault of my own.

This was also the second time she has quit within the last month or two, though for some reason I felt confident she wouldn’t return as she had done on the previous occasion. I figured our paths had crossed for a time and now the chapter in my life involving her — despite her being in the distance for most if it, save for that week of false hope she gave me — had finally and abruptly come to a close. It hurt at a level, but there was a much more prominent sense of relief.

I was finally holding on to letting go, to moving on, and hopefully learning from past mistakes and former delusions and illusions. I thought that had been the case when I let go of Claire, but then the whole Kara thing happened, and she and my experience of and with her seemed to echo many former women who had been prominent in my life. Perhaps Kara embodied those elements because she was the emotional equivalent to the grand finale of a fire works display on Independence Day.

Finally, it was dead and buried, I naively believed.

Then, within a single day, albeit through different routes, both Claire and Kara, formerly buried, rise like zombies from their deep graves, as if seeking to feed their insatiable hunger for my tired brain once again.

Some damsals, it seems, just won’t stay dead.

Even though their reemergence was jarring and left me feeling like the universe was intent on keeping me bound to the miserable, hopeless cycles they’ve sort of come to represent, I maintained psychological and emotional distance. It was like the body of the problem was no longer there, it was just the residual shadow I had to deal with — and to my surprise I was, at the very least, doing better with respect to the dealing.

And then, on this day that is an anniversary of a tragedy that effected me quite deeply — 9/11 — I awaken, after roughly two months of haunting dreams and cryptic, unnerving imagery erupting during my daily meditation sessions, with a pleasant, beautiful dream, the mood of which followed me into my waking existence.

Despite my skepticism, I truly hope this is a sign that I am turning a new leaf, that this is a sign of better things to come, signs of a new and improved chapter in my life.

Time, waking life, and my dreams, I am reasonably confident, will surely come to tell.