A dream and news from Cyprus
I had a dream last night that I was for some reason going to see a therapist in some mysterious pocket of the college campus. She turned out to be a tough, encouragingly competent middle-aged blond lady whose last name was "MacArthur" but insisted on being called "MacArr"--i.e., the first two syllables of her last name. She had an assistant, a taller, longer-haired younger blond woman who didn't say much but was very friendly.
We kept moving from office to office trying to find a room where we could be uninterrupted, but whenever I was about to ask a question a gang of costumed choristers would come in and start singing. There were several different choral groups that were marauding around the (I discovered) gigantic indoor office space, each with a different theme.
Finally, we settled down, but I was informed that I had only four minutes left. I was informed that in order to pay for the appointment, I just just drop off however much I felt like paying to the assistant at her desk sometime in the future. I was bewildered, as I normally am when trying to comprehend some new social procedure, at which point MacArr reiterated what she was saying, but included the phrase "over $25 dollars," which cleared up part of my problem.
I wanted to ask her about the psychological school she was most influenced by-- whether she practiced primarily psychodynamic or cognitive therapy, a distinction I've learned from Katie.
I said, "Can I ask a question?"
She said, "yes!" with enthusiasm. She was eager to cooperate.
But then the choristers came back, dressed to look like ancient Greek statues. While they sang, they tried to do the robot--the overall effect, I gathered, was to be like the subtly moving living statues I've seen, among other places (maybe), at Waterfire in Providence. But they did it horribly.
Then I woke up.
While this dream clearly drew from a lot of conversations with Katie about her studies and research, there was also the whole problem of appointments and procedures relating to my not having gotten around to scheduling a periodontal appointment to quell my mom's infectious anxiety about my gumline, which may be receding due to overzealous tooth brushing. (Long story)
The obstacle to my just calling up the periodontist I'm supposed to call and scheduling something is that I can't find my calendar anywhere. All the possessions I have with me are packing very tightly into cardboard boxes and plastic drawers and archived to be flush with each other in my closet in Oxford, Cambridge. Unpacking would be a disaster. But that means I can't locate the wall calendar that had, by the end of the last school year, become the one place where I can record future dates and reliably find them again.
So now, I have no place to record future dates and reliably find them again.
I cannot plan for the future, and I can't change the past. I feel trapped in a bottle and at sea. My job, while pleasant, reinforces the glass: each day I'm occupied with work and procrastination until 6 or so, then return home via a 30 minute walk. There are then approximately another five and a half hours before I collapse. One of them will be taken up with making and eating dinner, another will be taken up by showering and a phone call. Three and a half hours. God forbid I get on the internet. Distraction, procrastination, read a book; go to sleep.
The only time reserved for forethought or planning--the beginnings of making deliberate steps to improve my life--are the minutes of liquid reverie leaking between the hard blocks of my scheduled life. And that stuff, thought golden and delicious, is dangerous, because that is the stuff of my fantasized ambition. It's the stuff that, when it accumulates, turns back on me and and devalues the rest of my life. On the other hand, if I could only get enough of it, perhaps I could put it to good use....
-------------
Meanwhile, the real world exists and erupts around me without knowing it. This was a Gmail chat with a friend of mine whose summer plans were to participate in an intensive Arabic training program in Beirut:
10:24 AM me: How is Beirut?
Nicholas: i got out
me: huh?
Nicholas: on a norwegian cargo ship
to cyprus
10:25 AM me: Something tells me I haven't been keeping up with the news
[At this point I checked google news, frantically]
holy shit
I guess I haven't
Nicholas: i just got in
10:26 AM okay bye
me: Bye
Good luck
10:28 AM Nicholas: sorry little internet time
haha
later
me: later
Keep in touch
I feel so ashamed to be in such a bubble. Holy shit, Nick just had to escape air-raids in Lebanon on a fucking cargo ship.