March 19, 2009

12:07 p.m.

Play Dreams

The white swath in the photo isn't a fence. On further reflection, I realized it was a winter photo and it's simply the snow-covered lawn.

I had night sweats ALL NIGHT. I was just clammy the whole time. However, I did have a very encouraging dream. You know those dreams where you're suddenly in dress rehearsal for a play and you realize you haven't cracked the script open since the first readthrough, and you've no idea what you're doing?

I was in a production of Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, apparently, and I'd just forgotten to memorize anything at all. We were getting ready for the runthrough and I realized I couldn't do it without my script in hand. I was a little panicked. I went upstairs and was fishing around under my bed looking for the script. All my big handmade, bookmaking papers were under there. I found it, wondering how I would explain my ill-preparedness. At this point I was lucid and considering popping out of the dream, leaving everyone behind to fend for themselves, just gettin' outa Dodge. Ducking all responsibility. That's what I'd normally have done, in a dream like this. But on the way back down the stairs I clearly thought, "Or, I could face my fears and go through with the whole runthrough." I wasn't looking forward to the long, uncomfortable ordeal ahead, but I made the decision to do it anyway, because the other choice no longer seemed acceptable.

So I was down in the kitchen then, talking to my mother, only I had transformed into an old friend named Alan from high school days and it was his mother I was talking to. I haven't kept up with Alan much over the years, but he's the epitome of smarts and success -- graduated from Harvard, professor at Tufts, travels to China to teach politics or some such thing -- anyway, I, as Alan, was explaining to my mother that even though to all appearances I was everything anyone could wish to be, in reality I hadn't allowed myself to achieve my full potential at all, and I needed to fess up to that and make some changes. This was leading up to my saying that I wasn't prepared for the runthrough but I was going to do it anyway, to choose to be authentic instead of running away and avoiding responsibility for my choices. As I talked, I noticed that wild fuschia plants had grown in from outside and were hanging from the ceiling and walls, beautiful delicate flowers and leaves. That didn't seem odd. They dangled over Alan's mom's head as she did dishes at the sink, listening to me, trying to understand. I slowly woke up.

Now, I've probably mentioned Dar's and my predilection for all things rodential. We talk about mice all the time. We have tons of inside jokes about mice and mouseness. The enormity, the profundity, the significance of our finally going in on this house idea after years of mulling it over, does not escape me. I've wondered how it will turn out. It's not an arrangement I can put in a box. "Oh, we're lovers, so we're going to live together." No. "We're friends who are going in on a business arrangement." Not exactly. It's one of these delicious, unframeable situations which can either be frustrating (if one keeps trying to nail it down) or freeing. But in these dialogues we have along the way, I am aware of the need for clarity. I don't want the house to be a Mousetrap, where we don't know each other's expectations and then we come up against all these surprises after the fact.

It's all the more nebulous because we won't exactly both live there together, not much, not for some years to come. Dar is based in the city and it's clear he'll mostly stay there. That's nice for me, in a way; I like living alone. But I miss him, too, and it'll also be nice to have him there sometimes, when he can finally take a couple of days off from working... whenever that happens. More time together means more conversations of substance. My family love him, too. So far so good.

Then there's the question of other relationships. Being unable to quite define my relationship with Dar, within traditional lines, makes building other relationships around it a little less definable, too, especially now that the House is in the picture, connecting us in this very earthy, fertile and powerful way. I'm not interested in living with anyone else or having a different primary relationship. But, now, Eagle, for example. Eagle and I got a little touchy with each other. It seemed necessary, it was a way into the friendship. I don't know how to explain that to Dar or whether I even should. Dar and I haven't slept together in years. But he's the closest thing I have to a lover, in spite of that, and my heart feels an allegiance to him. I haven't talked much about Dar to Eagle yet, though I will soon. But what these explorations are I still can't say.

Well, I want to be careful -- not scared, not wary, just taking care. I'm cherishing these changes, these developments. Apparently, according to this dream, I'm ready to take responsibility for what I have and have not done in preparation for making these moves. I can be authentic. I can come downstairs with my script and get through the hard part of not knowing what I'm doing. And meanwhile there are all these beautiful, wild plants vining from the ceiling. That's encouraging.

The rest is up to the Invisible, I guess.