Awesome things
Last night I had a dream with Pete and Ashlee in it. It was strange, strange, strange...
Things all went crazy a couple of nights before -- buildings falling and lightning storms and the like. There was all this plot that I'm forgetting now, but at some point toward the end I was in this tiny room attached to a falling-down house, and a tree fell on me. Then in the morning I knew what I had to do, we all did.
I was in school - university, I think, but I don't know. I had classes, though. There was a woman there who had been my professor, but who had become sort of -- I had this feeling that she was a prophet. She was fed up with politics and she was starting a revolution We cleared a space for her to speak in a building with only two closed walls - the other side were open to the outside. We moved racks of clothes and set people up in chairs shaped like giant pineapples to watch her talk. I saw my friend Effee up in the balcony before she started talking, he was skeptical, but I was so happy to see him. Then I slid on down the rails of the up escalator, and it started. She'd hold these meetings and tell us about beauty -- how her niece, this child, would write on the ceiling in crayon - long stories bout her day, all about butterflies and love and redemption, and she thought it'd be beautiful for us to do that. So we all wrote on the walls and the ceilings and all over this huge open air building and drew little pictures - I drew a school of jellyfish on some cabinet doors, by some birds that someone else had drawn. It was so gorgeous - the feeling of doing it, and the final product. We were so happy to be doing it.
And then it was the next day and I had to go to class. It was a class that was held in the gym that president bush uses to work out. We kept trying to borrow his equipment but it kept breaking -- the handles kept splintering before we'd even touched them, like someone had spilled acid all of over them, and they were weirdly slimy with something tar-like. My sister was in the class, she kept being the one to touch them before they broke. And we kept trying to play badminton. It was confusing and then I saw this girl that I was madly in love with in high school and she -- she had always been in the class, but I hadn't recognised her -- and she kind of blew me off.
There was a choir of these beautiful tall black men, and they sang a cappella in front of the class - like, they were standing on the basketball court and singing, and we were all in desks watching them, it was some homework assignment. Then I realised I didn't know what the assignment was, but everyone was packing up and leaving, so I started to leave. And I asked this girl and she said hers was going to be on Sage Francis and I asked if I could join her group, but she walked away without answering me.
So class was over and I was walking down this corridor, and I knew that all the doors to my left would lead me back to the prophet's meeting. I went in and she was playing this weird repetitive electronic music, we had pamphlets that said it came from an advert, but with out all the bits that tried to sell us stuff. The walls were so pretty, and the ceiling, with all of our decorations all over it. When I walked in I was pretty close to the stage and a little over to the right and Pete and Ashlee were standing there, right up close, but not squished because we were early and most people hadn't come yet. I dropped my bag on the floor, and Pete saw me and gave me this huge beautiful smile.
When I came over to stand by them he offered me wine straight from the bottle (we already knew each other) and I took a huge swig - still unsettled from the class before - and then handed it to Ashlee, and we passed it around, but the bottle was almost empty from before I got there, so we ran out. Pete was going to try to get some more but he showed me his wallet and it was empty and he said "do you have any change I could borrow?" and I said sure, and scurried off to get it from my bag. In my wallet I had a bunch of ones so I grabbed those and we walked to the back wall (that wasn't really a wall), talking.
He asked how old my sisters were, older or younger, and I said younger and he said, "oh they probably wouldn't like me then," and seemed kind of sad, and I said, wryly but really gently, that I didn't think that was true. He asked me what was up, I seemed kind of weird and I said that I had had a weird day, and -- I remember him standing close, like a friend, like the way you shoulder bump with people to reassure them, not quiet a hug. When we got to the -- not a door, just the end of a ceiling and a lack of a wall - I gave him the money, but some of it had turned into tens and fives so it was more than I had thought, and he said "oh. Do you mind if I pay you back?" and I sort of -- I'm weird about money, but I said (this was all really quiet, soft) that "yeah, I'd even prefer it, I guess." And then he went to get wine and I went back into the tent/building thing and while I was walking back I thought "he seems really quiet - at peace - I'm going to tell him that when he gets back." I could almost see it. I would say, "you know, you're really quiet today. not in a bad way, though." and he would get it and smile a little bit, all happy, and hug Ashlee.
When I got back to Ashlee and saw her and I wasn't sure -- we weren't such good friends, she and I, but it had never been weird between us. I didn't matter because she started telling me about how the woman and her followers had accepted them into the group, and how their baby was going to be holy, and so loved, and the last thing she said was "I just knew they'd understand, I knew it!" with her hands clasped in front of her and this lovely flowing dress on. She still looked pregnant, I still thought she was, but there was also a baby in a cradle next to the prophet-woman. Ashlee had a huge smile on her face, and I was so happy to be sharing in her joy.
And then I woke up, wrote a rough version of this post because it didn't want to forget anything (it was terrible, my fingers were still sleep numb), and went back to sleep because it was 5am.
Things all went crazy a couple of nights before -- buildings falling and lightning storms and the like. There was all this plot that I'm forgetting now, but at some point toward the end I was in this tiny room attached to a falling-down house, and a tree fell on me. Then in the morning I knew what I had to do, we all did.
I was in school - university, I think, but I don't know. I had classes, though. There was a woman there who had been my professor, but who had become sort of -- I had this feeling that she was a prophet. She was fed up with politics and she was starting a revolution We cleared a space for her to speak in a building with only two closed walls - the other side were open to the outside. We moved racks of clothes and set people up in chairs shaped like giant pineapples to watch her talk. I saw my friend Effee up in the balcony before she started talking, he was skeptical, but I was so happy to see him. Then I slid on down the rails of the up escalator, and it started. She'd hold these meetings and tell us about beauty -- how her niece, this child, would write on the ceiling in crayon - long stories bout her day, all about butterflies and love and redemption, and she thought it'd be beautiful for us to do that. So we all wrote on the walls and the ceilings and all over this huge open air building and drew little pictures - I drew a school of jellyfish on some cabinet doors, by some birds that someone else had drawn. It was so gorgeous - the feeling of doing it, and the final product. We were so happy to be doing it.
And then it was the next day and I had to go to class. It was a class that was held in the gym that president bush uses to work out. We kept trying to borrow his equipment but it kept breaking -- the handles kept splintering before we'd even touched them, like someone had spilled acid all of over them, and they were weirdly slimy with something tar-like. My sister was in the class, she kept being the one to touch them before they broke. And we kept trying to play badminton. It was confusing and then I saw this girl that I was madly in love with in high school and she -- she had always been in the class, but I hadn't recognised her -- and she kind of blew me off.
There was a choir of these beautiful tall black men, and they sang a cappella in front of the class - like, they were standing on the basketball court and singing, and we were all in desks watching them, it was some homework assignment. Then I realised I didn't know what the assignment was, but everyone was packing up and leaving, so I started to leave. And I asked this girl and she said hers was going to be on Sage Francis and I asked if I could join her group, but she walked away without answering me.
So class was over and I was walking down this corridor, and I knew that all the doors to my left would lead me back to the prophet's meeting. I went in and she was playing this weird repetitive electronic music, we had pamphlets that said it came from an advert, but with out all the bits that tried to sell us stuff. The walls were so pretty, and the ceiling, with all of our decorations all over it. When I walked in I was pretty close to the stage and a little over to the right and Pete and Ashlee were standing there, right up close, but not squished because we were early and most people hadn't come yet. I dropped my bag on the floor, and Pete saw me and gave me this huge beautiful smile.
When I came over to stand by them he offered me wine straight from the bottle (we already knew each other) and I took a huge swig - still unsettled from the class before - and then handed it to Ashlee, and we passed it around, but the bottle was almost empty from before I got there, so we ran out. Pete was going to try to get some more but he showed me his wallet and it was empty and he said "do you have any change I could borrow?" and I said sure, and scurried off to get it from my bag. In my wallet I had a bunch of ones so I grabbed those and we walked to the back wall (that wasn't really a wall), talking.
He asked how old my sisters were, older or younger, and I said younger and he said, "oh they probably wouldn't like me then," and seemed kind of sad, and I said, wryly but really gently, that I didn't think that was true. He asked me what was up, I seemed kind of weird and I said that I had had a weird day, and -- I remember him standing close, like a friend, like the way you shoulder bump with people to reassure them, not quiet a hug. When we got to the -- not a door, just the end of a ceiling and a lack of a wall - I gave him the money, but some of it had turned into tens and fives so it was more than I had thought, and he said "oh. Do you mind if I pay you back?" and I sort of -- I'm weird about money, but I said (this was all really quiet, soft) that "yeah, I'd even prefer it, I guess." And then he went to get wine and I went back into the tent/building thing and while I was walking back I thought "he seems really quiet - at peace - I'm going to tell him that when he gets back." I could almost see it. I would say, "you know, you're really quiet today. not in a bad way, though." and he would get it and smile a little bit, all happy, and hug Ashlee.
When I got back to Ashlee and saw her and I wasn't sure -- we weren't such good friends, she and I, but it had never been weird between us. I didn't matter because she started telling me about how the woman and her followers had accepted them into the group, and how their baby was going to be holy, and so loved, and the last thing she said was "I just knew they'd understand, I knew it!" with her hands clasped in front of her and this lovely flowing dress on. She still looked pregnant, I still thought she was, but there was also a baby in a cradle next to the prophet-woman. Ashlee had a huge smile on her face, and I was so happy to be sharing in her joy.
And then I woke up, wrote a rough version of this post because it didn't want to forget anything (it was terrible, my fingers were still sleep numb), and went back to sleep because it was 5am.