Cleaning

I had two dreams last night... both somewhat disturbing.

One involved an older lady friend of mine, and one involved one of my Swell Sister friends.
The first took place in a gymnasium that had been used for an event. It was full of people the same race as my friend and all men if I remember correctly. They were clearing out of the room and my friend and I were left to clean their mess. (This is probably because we really have been cleaning a man's house this past week who's wife died a couple years ago.) In the dream we had large push brooms and were just sweeping piles of dust and trash. One man said something to my friend and she started crying. I heard the gist of the message and began to weep for her. It was about her husband cheating on her.

The second dream took place in a large warehouse type space full of arts and crafts equipment. My friend and I were all alone in there. It was our space, but it was a shop and class area too. We were cleaning up the pottery area. There were large metal shelves full of bisque-wear. A large industrial sink, and a counter top full of glazes and already painted but not fired bowls etc. The colors were vibrant and looked very tattoo-esk. The paint was still in it's chalky faze, and there was even painting on the floor. On the far side of the room were long tables set up for classes and some book shelves. It looked like an elementary school art room. The area we were standing in looked very warehouse-y though. Both my friend and I were picking things up and putting things where they belonged. I got side tracked with the paintings and how I could still move the 'chalk' around. My friend called me over. I was in a blanket. I think she had a blanket wrapped around her as well. (This is reminiscent of a photo shoot we did last month. Some of the pictures she took of me, I was in a blanket.) At one part in the dream I was naked standing there talking, but then a group of ladies came in the front door. They thought the store was open and wanted to do a project. My friend was upset that they had made it in the door... like the door was supposed to be locked. We both had glaring looks on our faces, and then I woke up.

No time to really ponder things this morning as I am off to help the first friend clean again today.

Questioning Places

Last night's dream started in a palace type hotel room in the middle east. I was there with my sister and my grandma. I went down without them to the dining room which was also grand. I sat down at a table full of Arab men. The parade of food started. Tons of tea as well. One man left and his place sat empty for a while. I invited the tea server to sit down with us. The other men at the table gave me a look of disapproval, but the server stayed. One of the men to my right asked me why I had chosen to move to that part of the world. My brain raced with reasons, including witnessing, but I only spoke of my long time dream of coming to Morocco and Jordan and Israel. (All of which I visited this past year.) I spoke of my love of the cuisine and the decor.
Then the meal was over and a few Arab women took my family and I on a walk on a country road. It was a long trek, like we were going far out of town to get away. The dirt road ran beside crops and carts (very reminiscent of the end of "Fiddler on the Roof"). One of the women asked me why I only had two children. I started to talk about me not being the "mom" type, but I realized it sounded 'wrong' in that culture, so I didn't talk further about it.
Then the dirt road came to a paved road going up a hill. We crossed over and started walking up the hill on the gravel on the right side. As we went up the hill I saw another dirt road that went off to the right and down the other side of the hill. I stopped to look closer saying to my husband, "I think that's the road... the one from my dreams that leads to the wise man's house." (In most of my dreams I am approaching the road by coming down the paved road, making it off to the left. This was the first time I had seen it from the other direction. It's also the road that led to the horse stables and ranch house from a different dream.)
I was very intrigued and followed the road down the hill. It was a very long road but my sight moved like I was on wheels looking through a movie camera. the walk/roll down didn't take long at all. As I got to the bottom I rounded the bend and realized it was the horse ranch, not the wise man's house. There was the same gravel parking area that they both share, but the wooden beams framing the area and the wagon wheel on the stone wall of the building let me know it was the horse place not the wise old man's house. There were beautiful trees surrounding the area. It was very picturesque.
Knowing that I had been there before I didn't think anything of walking right inside. Inside was no where I had been before. It was a man's house that was a little dated with shag carpet and linoleum, beer cans, wood paneling, and other 70's looking things. The TV was on in a room only separated from the entry by a half wall with a "window" in it. The man walked through that room, as did 5 dogs. The dogs were all mutts, but you could clearly see breeds in them; like one was mainly bull dog, another mainly cattle dog, another a mix of Saint Bernard and pug. A few of the dogs came over to see me one by one. I knelt down and petted them. The man said something to me about the place, but I don't remember.

Meaning...
Well, I did prepare a Moroccan feast Friday for 12 ladies from my church.
We have been talking about travel a lot in my house...
And I've been babysitting dogs all week. All of those elements are explainable...
Why though, was there the horse place? Why was it not the wise man's place that I wanted to find? Or are the horse place and the wise man's place one in the same, and I see which ever makes sense that night. Is the horse place about humility and service, and the wise man's house about encouragement and empowerment? Do they intertwine?
Why was it coupled with the middle east. I just finished reading "Son of Hamas" (a great true story!) My mind is definitely on the middle east, just because of our nearing the "End". Well, it could be as simple as that. I'll ask God to show me if there is any further connection.

I am The Warrior

First dream in a while that has been note worthy.

A familiar setting... one from a dream many months ago. In the dream from before the location was in the country past horses and down a slope that made it feel like the Shire. It was a cozy but decadent home of an elderly man. A "wise old man" that I went to deliver something to and ended up talking to, and looking around admiring his things.
In last night's dream I started inside the house. There were many women from church(past and present)gathered there for something.
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted my friend Jeffrey, who has been dead for several years now. Many of my friends were talking to her, some times in groups and sometimes one on one. I stayed away. The dream did not take place in the past... It was present day, and even in my sleep, I knew she was dead. (In life, she was one of my dearest friends and mentors... a kindred spirit... one I could go to with ANY thing.)
The event that we were all gathered for let out and I walked out the side door and on to the gravel drive. Jeffrey walked right up beside me and said, "Why have you been avoiding me?" I don't remember what I said, but it was something about not knowing "what" she was. She spoke to me with kind words and basically said not to ignore her. I woke up shortly after singing "The Warrior" by Patty Smyth from the 80s.

Jeffrey once told me all of my "issues" would be solved if I just realized how much God loves me; If I could see in myself, the value that He sees in me.
This little life lesson comes up again and again for me. I have a hard time feeling "loved... and worth the effort."
Anyway... that's just ONE piece of advice she gave me, but I know that she was referring to it when she said not to ignore her. Me wondering "what" she was speaks of me still doubting the source of the thoughts in my head that tell me to take "self" time. Ya know, if you think being a mom means doing everything for everybody else... and then you get bashed for not doing a very good job of that, you some times start to think that a voice telling you to take some "me time" must be the enemy, cause that seems selfish. blah blah blah.
The wise old man was not in his house, but it's clear to me that Jeffrey was the "wise" person in this dream that everyone was getting advice from.
So all that leaves is the song:
... I looked up the lyrics.

"You run, run, runaway
It's your heart that you betray
Feeding on your hungry eyes
I bet you're not so civilized

Well isn't love primitive?
A wild gift that you wanna give
Break out of captivity
And follow me stereo jungle child
Love is the kill
Your heart's still wild

Shooting at the walls of heartache
Bang, bang!
I am the warrior
Well I am the warrior
And heart to heart you'll win
If you survive the warrior, the warrior

You talk, talk, talk to me
Your eyes touch me physically
Stay with me we'll take the night
As passion takes another bite, oh
Who's the hunter, who's the game?
I feel the beat call your name
I hold you close in victory
I don't wanna tame your animal style
You won't be caged in the call of the wild

Shooting at the walls of heartache
Bang, bang!
I am the warrior
Well I am the warrior
And heart to heart you'll win
If you survive the warrior, the warrior
I am the warrior

I'm not sure if you can see anything in it... cause it was only meant for me... but I see a message.

Movies, Art, Fashion, and a Machine Gun

Last night's dream started as a movie...
I was John Cusack and I was with a young Dan Aykroyd in a two-seater plane. We were laughing and talking about girls and sex.
The view changed and I was out of the movie and sitting in the theater with my husband. We got up to leave and I mentioned to him that I had forgotten to go see Laurelin's show. (A friend of mine just had her first solo art show up at a gallery, and I did forget to go "opening" night.) So I walked over with him to a gymnasium where the show was. (It was the gym from my HS.) Her art was everywhere. It was like a life time of art; hundreds of pieces. I started on the wall to my right where there was a nautical theme going on. Perfect paintings of boats and wharfs (not her "norm"). I was commenting on one when her fiance David told me there was another wing that held her crafts. (She is a knitter and crafter as well... when the mood strikes.) So I walked over to that wing and looked behind glass at dolls and jewelry and buttons and other crafty things she had made (again, not her "norm".)
Then the scene changed and I was going to visit my friend Ramin in New York. I got to his apartment and started working on patterns on his floor. I was waiting for him to get home, but in the mean time I had taken at least 8 articles of clothing and was tracing them on to dotted pattern paper. They were all ugly clothes, very matronly. The idea was that I was going to try to get a job back at the St. John's design house(where Ramin and I worked after we graduated college). He came home and asked what I was doing. He looked over the clothes and my work and told me I was doing it all wrong. He said the clothes were hideous, and that my pattern tracing skills were terrible. "Don't you remember anything from school?" he asked. He then stormed off. The scene changed again and I was in the bed of a truck with all of the pattern making equipment and my luggage. Ramin was walking away from me down the NY street. I jumped out of the truck and went to him begging him to help me. We stood by a car and talked for a brief minute and then I saw a man jump in the truck bed and start to load up my stuff. I ran back to stop him, but he had a machine gun and pointed it at my face. I still yelled at him, saying, "That's my stuff, how dare you take it!" Ramin yelled my name, "Are you crazy?" he asked. Then I grabbed the machine gun that was at my face and turned it to face the man. Ramin again said, "Are you crazy? If you shoot him you'll be the one in trouble." But I shot at his arm anyway. Nothing... just air. So I aimed the gun at the yard beside me and shot again... just air. Then I reprimanded the man in the truck, "You were going to steal my stuff with an unloaded weapon?" I was still yelling at him when the dog woke me up.

This dream has loads of guilt in it.
Things that are bothering me that I keep replaying in my head.
That I still watch ill-humored movies, that I forgot Laurelin's show, that I screwed up the pattern for my daughter's Halloween costume cause I don't remember how to make sleeves. (I haven't done them since college.) It even has a bit from the book I'm reading called "Son of Hamas" where the machine guns he bought didn't work. The chapters in the book since that moment have filled me with guilt because I relate to the Israeli side, and they have kept the writer of the book in a prison torturing him for the past few chapters. (A true story... good book.)
The truck bed I'm sure has to do with me driving my husband's truck the other day to pick up my son's bike. (I don't drive it often... it's too big.)
Ramin is always put in my dreams when there is advice about my fashion career, because he is a person I will listen to. I think he stayed in the dream for the machine gun part because he is originally from Iran... which fits the setting of my book, at least in that neck of the world.
I think that the part about Laurelin's art not being "her's", was about myself as well. I used her in the dream because she is one artist I know that has a very common theme through her work so it's easy to see when it's not coming from 'her'. Most likely this was a reminder to me to be true to myself... which was also emphasized by the horrible clothes I was tracing... They were SO not me. :)

Reunion at a Water Park

I was texting my old friend Paul last night shortly before bed time... telling him that facebook doesn't give me "enough" of him. It's all so surface driven (which is good for the internet,) but I wanted to know more about where he was at in life.

When I was a teenager I often went out with guys just because they liked me. Paul was one of those guys that I never knew a thing about until we dated. It's a terrible method of dating and I preach against it to my daughter all the time, but that's what I did back then. If I found out they were "bad", or even if I knew they were beforehand, I hoped I would make them better. People call that missionary dating; I was queen of that method. Nothing ever happened to the boys I dated to make them better while I was in their life, but I have had multiple old boy friends tell me all these years later that I impacted them greatly. Few with stories of God, but most with stories of self-worth. I'm happy about that.

Well... last night I dreamed that I met Paul again at a reunion. The reunion was in a pool at a water park. All kinds of people from Aviano AFB HS were there, all swimming.
It was a deep pool with rocks on the sides and rivers trailing from it in a couple directions. The official reunion was only at that pool, though there were slides and other attractions all around. I was not aware of the other surroundings at the start of the dream... only the big pool with all my classmates.
I saw Paul and swam over to him. I floated my body up to the surface while we said our hellos and I took off something. Not sure if I had been fully dressed and was now in a swimsuit, or if I took off part of my swimsuit. I embraced Paul and then closed my eyes. He held me in a head lock and we talked. Only my head was above water now, with Paul's arm acting like a life preserver keeping me afloat. There was some "inappropriate" touching, and I asked if he should be doing that with all these people around. He laughed and said, "we're not there anymore", "I wouldn't do that in front of anyone." I opened my eyes and pulled away to find that we were now further down one of the lazy rivers that flowed from the pool. We continued down the river and on to multiple water slides, laughing and having a great time. After the third or fourth slide we went to get back into the lazy river but the entry stairs were over crowded with small children. Paul asked my what my intentions were. I explained to him that I had no desire to cheat on my husband and that I was very happy in my marriage. He was happy with that news. We stared at the obstacle of kids in front of us on the stairs and decided to try to jump over them. Right as I jumped the scene changed and I was no longer in the river or with Paul. I was now with my friends Shawn Kuver and the Rhodes sisters (Erin and Michelle), also from HS in Aviano. We were walking through a cruise ship type of hallway with red velvety carpets. There were trays of food and things nearby like we were at the back end of a restaurant. There was a piano sitting in the hallway and Shawn sat down to play, (well, goof off on it at least). One of my old youth group leaders, Jill, walked up to us and gave me a disapproving look. I took her queue and walked away.
Then I woke up.

Interesting dream, yes?
Water and pools etc. for me usually are about refreshing, cleansing, relaxing things. There was never a "bad" moment in the dream... even the inappropriate touch didn't feel "wrong". I think that with most dreams of sexual stuff the symbolism is more about intimacy than actual sex. (Of course, I could have been inputting my evening with my husband into part of my dream.) Anyway, I think that the dream speaks of having a private "deeper level" conversation with Paul (away from facebook... which is basically a reunion in itself), enjoying that, and both of us viewing our kids as obstacles that block that relaxing experience, the carefree life of when we knew each other.
As for the cruise ship part of the dream... I think it speaks of mischief. Shawn was most definitely one of my most troublesome friends. Especially given that Jill (a conscience symbol) snapped me out of it... I think that it was just a warning, still related to Paul... to not cause mischief.

Uninvited

Lots of crazy dreams lately...
No time to write them all.

Last night, one that sticks out was...

I was at a ball... all fancy and everything but I wasn't supposed to be there. I had snuck in with a friend of mine (can't remember who now). It was like a movie... I'm not even sure if I was myself. Somehow we talked our way into getting to stay but the lady in charge of security kept a close eye on us. We saw her walk away for a moment and went over to the sign in table that was unmanned, and grabbed a stack of invites. (The idea was that when you came in the door, you handed in your invitation as a pass to get in.) We stuffed the invitations into new cards and ran out of the door with them. The lady was looking around for us and noticed that we were gone and sent guards looking for us. In the parking lot (which was gravel on a big front lawn) we met up with some friends and crammed into a van. I sat on the passenger side floor board in front of a boy who was on the football team. There was one boy for each girl...
We hadn't pulled out of the driveway yet when my dog woke me up.

Yesterday I had a dream about a reoccurring futuristic airport. Checking in... going up elevators. This is the 4th dream I've had about that airport.

White Water, and A Year Book Photo Shoot

So last night before 3:00 I had a strange dream of going from rock to rock in a white body of water. The rocks were all white and the water was milky. It was all white, and I was in the water, but didn't want to swim in it, instead I was trying to stay with at least one limb on a rock, like it was dangerous.
My dog Knuckles came in at 3:00 and woke me up.

After a brief potty break I went back to sleep and dreamed of high school. I was with my sister and two old boyfriends. My sister was with Donnie, and I was with Jay. We were all posing in various places for pictures for the year book. Mr. Leander (my old English teacher, and teacher in charge of Year book) was taking the pictures.
We were at a stadium of sorts, sometimes on the grass and sometimes on the bleachers. I walked behind Jay and felt his bare back. "You're back is great, and you have soft skin just like Michael." I said. (Speaking of my husband.) Jay's head was shaved (like now, not like in HS).
Half way through the picture taking, while we were at the top of the amphitheater in the middle of a picture of my sister and I, I got a zit on my upper lip on the left side. It hurt and was huge. I tried to pose in a way that it didn't show, but the first chance I got I ran down to the rest room. True to form, the line was out the door. I thought about it for a minute and rationalized that since I didn't need to pee I could skip the line and just go straight for the mirrors. I did. There were vanity stations in the middle of a large sterile room. The stations were made of stainless steel and the mirrors were behind cabinet doors on the stations. There was even a small round close up mirror at the station I chose. I popped the zit and it immediately subsided and I was able to go back with out worrying about it at all.
Then my alarm rang.

Pieces of the dream like the close up mirror and even the zit are things from yesterday. The zit being reminiscent of a picture I saw of my nephew with a swollen lip from an allergic reaction to Motrin. The mirror being from my son's bathroom, that I was telling him to use to brush his teeth so that he would do a better job.
Even the photo shoot was reminiscent of a shoot I recently did with one of my swell sister ladies for our portrait club. (My sister in the dream, could have been symbolically a "sister".)
Anyway... I have no idea about Donnie and Jay and Mr. Leander, or the settings.
Or the white water and rocks dream for that matter.
The white water dream actually intrigues me quite a bit more. I'll have to think about that one.