TR=dad?

Last night dreamed a colleague was explaining to me that his wife was having an affair with another man.

Then, somewhat later in the dream carousel, found myself traveling with my father, who in the dream was Theodore Roosevelt. I was going with him through Germany where everyone unaccountably spoke French. Very positive feeling throughout.

storm of correspondences...

This morning I sat about writing a little story related to some high school events. Not long after I got a telephone call from a company that was putting together an alumni book for my high school. Hmmm... (I declined to participate. Ultimately the hs experience is a granfalloon.)

anxiety dream #4

In this dream I was in bed when Sandy came in the bedroom and tried to get into the attic via the pull-down stairs. She reached up and pulled them down. I told her to be careful because she has shoulder problems. Then, inexplicably, the entrance remained open but the stairs themselves disappeared. She produced a short stool from somewhere and stood on it, then leaped to the hole in the ceiling. I cried out because it looked very dangerous, and sure enough she was unable to completely make the leap. She clutched the attic floor with her upper body but slipped down and landed with a horrible cry on the floor of the bedroom. Her head took a serious blow. I tried to get out of the bed and get to her but my legs were paralyzed. Using my elbows I dragged my body to the edge of the bed. She was lying on the floor, where I could see that the back of her head was smashed up. I desperately called her name to no effect.

I woke with anxiety.

post dream

Today we planted that fig tree. Myself, Sandy, and Zack. We named it Christy's Fig after the person who gave it to us, and performed a little mock-sacred rite to honor the event, dancing around and singing a birthday song. It was moving despite the silliness.

Every act has roots in the past and branches in the future.

anxiety dream #3

My brother and mother want to build a large greenhouse on my property. I am somehow made to believe that I owe this to them. My wife is opposed. She and I walk around the backyard discussing the possibility. The backyard is a dream rhyme for the backyard of the house I lived in when I was 13 years old. And now, as I write this at 3am, I think of the fig tree that we were given by a friend a few days ago and the fig tree that grew in that early backyard. My chest feels heavy with anxiety and guilt.

anxiety dream #2

Only parts of last night's dreams remain:

My father, dead for 25 years, is visiting me as he looks for his father. He is gray, thin. Later in the same dream my brother will try to remove a porcupine that has gotten in the house. This animal is small, dark, and covered with so many spines that we at first think they are fur. As we corner him near the door he shoots out the spines in profusion so that his body is revealed to be much smaller than we thought. We keep our distance but some of the spines hit me, without being painful. One sticks in my belt at the small of my back.

From another dream, same night:

Being kissed by a blonde haired young woman with soft cheeks and lips--she is trying to persuade me to take her photo in the play she is about to be in. A bit later she has become a black woman, and still later I realise she is actually a cat. I can't find my camera and there is some tension because the play is about to start. I travel with my wife and son back to our house to get it. Somewhere along the way I am watching dozens of bugs crawl across a wodden floor.

anxiety dream #1

I'm in the house, the living room. Sandy is nearby. Without knocking, a man enters the room from outside. He is in his early thirties, with long unkempt blonde hair. At first I think he is my ex-brother-in-law and I'm shocked to see him. My niece has been on my mind lately.

But it isn't him. He has a faint air of menace. He leaves without speaking. I follow him outside to a bright sunny day, where I find a group of musicians setting up. Looks like a bluegrass band but the bass is odd, like a skeleton of a bass.

More people appear, and more, all relatively young and there is the air of a concert. Everyone seems vaguely hostile, as though they were extras in a biker movie. No one speaks to me though I try to talk with several people.

I return inside, which is now crowded, and the house has become huge, a kind of delapidated Meditteranean villa with multi-colored paint peeling from stucco walls.

I wander through the house, growing increasingly anxious and tense. I yell at people and start herding them outside. No one speaks to me, though they grudgingly mill to the door. I continue chasing people out until the house is almost empty. I walk upstairs to the roof. Someone is standing at the edge of the roof at the corner. There is a blue colored stripe of paint near the edge as a warning marker. I lie down and crawl to the edge. The person standing at the corner is leaning forward as though he might jump. I say something admonitory to him and I look over to see that the house is now surrounded by a dark lake which comes directly to the base of the house. I'm surprized by this because it wasn't there when I went outside earlier.

No one else is down there but I see a wooded island not far away. Somehow I know or over hear voices saying that everyone has gone there.

There is an overwhelming sense of anxiety and I wake panting and full of dread.

the simplest answer

Last night my son asked me about Occam's Razor, because he has come across the name on a website. Today the first answer in the Time's crossword was Occam. Hmmm...