Happy/Sad Dream
I had a dream last night.
Lauren and I were house shopping. It's unclear why, (because dreams don't have to make sense) but we found ourselves in a very modern home. It was definitely above our price range and in a neighborhood that catered to well above our pay, but nonetheless, I stood in the nicest livingroom I'd ever been in and went through the motions with Lauren and this non-present-but-assumed realtor.
The home was white. It was seemingly made of angles and glass, and exuded power and money. The livingroom was housed by two floor-to-ceiling glass windows that came together at a 90° angle and showcased the lake beyond it. The backyard that the livingroom looked out onto seemed to have the smallest green of a golf course that the neighborhood took pride in. Beyond the green was a lake that didn't end, so there's no telling how one would drive a ball into my backyard and then get there to finish the hole. I walked through the glass (dreams, amirite?) and toed at the hole of the green, looking back at Lauren with a chuckle and a knowing 'look at these fancy motherfuckers' face.
The livingroom itself had a square stone pit dug out of it at hard angles to create concrete seats. In the middle was a drop-down fireplace. All very chíc.
Other than the pit (that I think served in lieu of couches), there was a wooden staircase to nowhere; floating dark wood, stained to perfection, that seemed to protrude from the wall all on their own. The front door was in view and had a matching color and feel to the stairs.
Unprompted, I began to wander and seemed to get silent approval from the invisible realtor. Lauren followed and we began exploring the house. Rooms blur by. Dreams have a funny way of moving you from one place to another like that. We walked up a slow-sloping ramp. It was like a poorly constructed County Fair funhouse. The details escape me, but it didn't feel out of place.
At the top of the stairs we enter a room that feels like a master closet. It opens up to the right of the door, long but not narrow. Definitely rectanglar, but not claustrophobic.
On the far wall is a window high on the wall, nearly touching the tall ceilings, giving sunlight to the room and convincing me that looking out the window would grant me a higher perspective of the same livingroom view from before.
Along the walls running from the door to the window are shelves. They're spaced about a foot and a half apart vertically and terminate at eye level, about 3 or 4 shelves. The walls behind them are wood, or laminate made to look so. It's reminiscent of the home my dad grew up in - old and a little musky but familiar.
The shelves are filled with an assortment of framed photos and knickknacks. Most are immobile, but the presence of minor movements are there.
We enter the room in earnest and Lauren quickly becomes fascinated with one of the photos. I gravitate to her minor happy outcries and discover a moving photo. Like Harry Potter or a real world gif, there's a late-teenage version of me with my pants at my ankles, trying to run through a parking lot while laughing like an idiot. A black baseball cap is backwards on his head hiding the rats nest of oily hair that lived there. A baggy shirt hangs off a wire frame, and the awkward run/lope/gallop that he's doing floods me with memories of parking lot jams and stealing cigarettes from parents.
I tell Lauren, "That's at Austin's, a defunct coffee shop in Atascocita. I don't remember why my pants are down." She laughs politely . It's one of those laughs she gives me a lot; placating and polite. Like an acknowledgement that I said something at all more than an expression of joy.
We part and begin scanning the shelves independent of one another. I find some toys from my very young days. On a lower shelf I see the Robocop action figure that the DuckMan gave me one Christmas. Above that and further down is Petey, the fake monkey that mom convinced Cody & I was a real monkey.
Photos are everywhere, but a lot of them don't register in the dream. Some seem to just be floating Polaroids. They hang suspended without frames or context.
There's one of me, Cody & Jennifer at the Renaissance Festival. I loved that trip, because it was one of the first times we went somewhere without a parent (or permission, for that matter). A little bittersweet, because I remember someone commenting that I was a third wheel, implying the two prettier people on the photo were the couple.
I'm not quite sure when, but I'm now aware that Lauren is quietly talking to someone. I turn, expecting our transparent realtor and instead find Jennifer Mau. Casually dressed like she just left home to grab something from the store, she's standing with her right hand on her hip and her left foot turned out. Her patented stance reminds me of how she liked to push boundaries and see if she could get away with things. A learned trait from me or a shared trait?
Lauren's asking about the Austin photo and I walk over in enough time to catch the end of the explanation.
"He was dared," she explains with great effort, as if she had just endured my shenanigans yesterday, "and you know Casey never backs down from something stupid." She rolls her eyes towards me and then back to the photo.
"He's gotten better," Lauren says, smiling at me.
"Well someone got him into shape!" Jenn says, feigning relief.
I meander again. I'm finding things I didn't know I'd lost. There's a Casio keyboard I'd received for my 10th birthday. I'd desperately wanted to learn to play piano, but when faced with acquiring new knowledge, I'd backed down from the challenge. Only one summer of lessons before I quit.
There was a rolled up poster of Darth Maul. I'd spent my own $5 on it at Walmart, but it only hung for an hour before mom made me take it down. "It's too Satanic," she'd said. I was mad that I'd wasted $5. It was a lot of money to a 12 year old.
I came to a clustering of items and tried to recall their significance, but they escaped me.
I could hear Lauren and Jenn laughing. Jenn was explaining another photo to Lauren and it tickled both of them. No telling what it was.
"Hey, can you explain this one to me?" I asked Jennifer, not turning to look at her and Lauren.
I crouched low and reached behind a photo and a toy to find a blown glass fish. It was a bass with red gills and bulging, cartoon eyes jumping out of the water. "I don't get this one."
She crossed her arms and smiled, knowingly. "You really don't know?"
"No. Should I?"
"I guess not," she uncrossed and shrugged, assuming her normal Jenn stance. "That represents something we did together."
"I'm sorry, I just don't remember us being fish people."
She laughed. "Well, we're not fish people," she said, laughing again. "But these aren't your memories. They're mine. You take up some space in my head, but you won't get all of the details because they're my details. I hold some things more dear than you, so you may not remember what I remember. I can remember bits of the stories you told me. For example, I know you had a keyboard, but I dont know if you can play anything."
I remember frowning in the dream. "Tell me about the fish?"
"No, I don't think I will. That one is for me."
And then the shrill of my Marc Rebillet alarm sounding me into the morning cuts it off and I wake up.