Dreaming About My Father: Two Dreams, Three Years Apart

Dream: May 18, 2020:
Very early this morning, I dreamed that I was driving in an unfamiliar part of SF, couldn't find the right streets to find the on-ramp for the Bay Bridge, and so parked and found some random cafe to get coffee and study a paper map for the proper route. As I am struggling with the worn, torn, and misfolded map, I realize my father is sitting at a table in an enjoining section of the cafe and chatting with one of his old colleagues. There is a pane of glass between us, and he hasn't noticed me. I think dad must have taken mass transit to get here, and I can give him a ride home after he finishes his conversation. I wake then, and I remember after a few moments that my father has been dead for many years.

That was actually a dream that shifted from anxiety and frustration to something rather cheery.

Oddly enough, three years ago on this same day I dreamed about my deceased father, which I had forgotten, but which Facebook Memories delivered to me just now.

A very old shot of the two of us.  

In these dreams, we are both adults.

Dream: May 18, 2017
Quite early this morning I had one of those teaching dreams turn into one of those deceased-parent dreams. I was helping a student, though I didn't have the right handouts on hand, in a lovely office: old wood and sunlit glass, more spacious and less cluttered than my actual office, with French doors to a most lovely rose garden. Anyway, I am helping this student grapple with his research project when my father, many years dead but not in the dream, appears in the doorway. He is dressed in a white shirt and khakis. He gives me the barest of glances, but isn't rude, as he walks through my office to the French doors and out into the garden. I tell the student that's my dad even as I realize--in the dream itself--that my father's dead. 

I wake at that moment, looking through the French doors for my father.


2020 P.S. 
Even earlier this morning, I also had a teaching dream, a positive one about explaining how poetry works, before the deceased-parent dream -- just to increase the paralleling . . . .

Also, panes of glass appear in both 2017 and 2020.

Stepping South of Carmel

Hey Dad --

Saline Drip

TBT: Fishing with Dad

Fishing trip.

I caught my first fish at age seven with my dad at my side.  I'm older here, obviously.

This trip out into Monterey Bay, oh, my father was miserable.
Seasick so much.
Still, the whirr of the reel would catch his attention . . . .

I'm not sure we caught those or if we were gifted by cousins on the same trip.  The conditions were raw that time, and we went out more than once.

1996?

Dream: Out Into The Garden

Quite early yesterday morning I had one of those teaching dreams turn into one of those deceased-parent dreams.

I was helping a student, though I didn't have the right handouts on hand, in a lovely office: old wood and sunlit glass, more spacious and less cluttered than my actual office, with French doors to a most lovely rose garden.  Anyway, I am helping this student grapple with his research project when my father, many years dead but not in the dream, appears in the doorway.  He is dressed in a white shirt and khakis.  He gives me the barest of glances, but isn't rude, as he walks through my office to the French doors and out into the garden.  I tell the student that's my dad even as I realize--in the dream itself--that my father's dead.

Looking through the French doors, looking for my father, I awoke.

Understory

What do you see?
What's happening?
How does the shot feel to you?

___

Or, is this is a crime scene photograph?
If so, what's the crime?
What happened?
Or, is it about to happen?

-------

Story-thoughts always make me happy.

-------

"Why do you think in terms of crime, Matt, especially crime stories?" a friend asks.

Family tradition?

Literary tradition?

Even Homer's epics are crime stories, if you want to take that angle . . . .

Ocean Cove: 1978

Thanks, Dad, for having my back.

My first ocean dive at Ocean Cove, Sonoma County, CA.

In Memoriam

Hey Dad, will it really be ten years?

Mask: In Blue -- sculpture mix; cobalt carbonate oxide.

Dream Vision

The other early morning I had a very vivid dream in which my (late) father called to say that he and my (late) mother were having a fine vacation and would be home soon. I'm grateful for that one.

Batter Up! My Dad As A Young Man

R.I.P.  Dad.  The anniversary has rolled around once again.

My father was always a ball-player.  And, he has "Duckworth" written all over his face.

Arnold: "The Forsaken Merman"

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go—
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;

Children's voices, wild with pain—
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall'd town
And the little grey church on the windy shore,
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;
She said: "I must go, to my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
'T will be Easter-time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

       Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;
Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

       Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun!"
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.

       Come away, away children
Come children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows coldly;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side—
And then come back down.
Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea."

--Matthew Arnold

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

 If you had been here this morning, you just might have taken this shot.

Dream-Return

Rudi's been dead now three and a half years, but last night he visited me in a dream, that big old happy self doing his same old tricks. Felt really good.

Rudi would have been seventeen on April Fool's Day.

I've dreamed recently of my father and my friend Keith, both deceased, and in the dreams they were very much alive, very much going about fairly mundane tasks. Those dreams felt good too. Waking has had its own sorrows, sure, but the dreams felt good.

I can't recall in which poem just now, but Carolyn Kizer wrote words that I find comforting and haunting, puzzling and promising:

I dream of the dead,

Kind, brilliant, and comforting.

The lost return to us

When we are lost.

"Car 54, Where Are You?"

This is a gift from a student on the eighth anniversary of my father's death. This student has lost his father as well, quite recently.

We've been reading Ebbesmeyer and Scigliano's Flotsametrics and the Floating World in class, which features plastic ducks and other toys (among other things) caught in the Pacific gyres . . . .

Thanks, B.B.

Mourning Coffee

I was going to wear a tie today to honor this eighth anniversary of the loss of my father. However, he hated to wear a tie, so I decided to skip the tie and just wear one of his favorite sport coats instead. I'm not sure how I ended up wearing the old jeans with coffee stains (something I wouldn't normally wear to teach in), but I recall him spilling his coffee in his truck almost every time I rode with him, so maybe his spirit was with me this morning.

Water White as Ghosts

Soberanes Point, Big Sur, CA: June 20th, 2011.

I posted these shots back in the summer, but I felt the push to repost.

I may attempt a run down here next weekend.

My father's spirit seems close to the earth here, among a few other places.

Fog at Soberanes Point

Most likely, my father had his fatal heart attack on this path back in 2004. Every so often, I drive down to walk the path. I don't think this is a morbid exercise at all. I think of it as a ritual of recollection, as stepping-stones into his past and my future. Father's Day, in this case, had been the day before, so I was paying my respect.

He died on the way up the steep trail after fishing with one of his oldest, dearest friends.

If and when one must go, that's not so bad, don't you think?

The day was foggy, but glorious still. I really wanted to free dive, but I resisted the impulse. A little too much energy working out there for a solo foray. And yet . . . .

My Father's Fiftieth: The Belly Dancer

For his fiftieth birthday, my mother dispatched a belly dancer to crash the police officers' conference that my father was chairing. I was shocked by the idea, frankly, given my father's dislike of public show (and of revealing his prominent heart surgery scar), but he was a very good sport about the whole thing.

Like most Duckworth's, my dad was a professional extrovert, despite the characteristic personal reserve. Actually, on reflection, I am not sure if his co-workers or team mates ever realized just how introverted he was. In other words, my father could be a ham when he felt the need, and he often felt the need. I proudly take after him in that regard. (Just ask my students.) In sports, my father could be a genuine extrovert too.

When he started playing the tambourine, I had to laugh. Luckily for me, my mother had alerted the relatives about the event, and we crashed the conference just as the belly dancer did. (Well, not just as.) Afterwards, when my brother questioned him about how he reacted to the dancer, my father replied, "What else could I do?" Something like that.

I like remembering what a good sport my father could be. I like to remember him having some fun. (I'll put this memory next to the one of him diving off a rock into the Carmel River when I was a very small boy. I recall thinking, Wow, he's OLD and he's diving right OFF that rock --and my father must have been only 30, 31, or 32.)

My father at 50. I'm grayer than he was, but I hope I can be such a good sport my whole life long. Happy Dad's Day, Dad! I'm a day early, but you won't mind, will you?

"A Visitor": A Poem By Mary Oliver

A VISITOR

My father, for example,

who was young once

and blue-eyed,

returns

on the darkest of nights

to the porch and knocks

wildly at the door,

and if I answer

I must be prepared

for his waxy face,

for his lower lip

swollen with bitterness.

And so, for a long time,

I did not answer,

but slept fitfully

between his hours of rapping.

But finally there came the night

when I rose out of my sheets

and stumbled down the hall.

The door fell open

and I knew I was saved

and could bear him,

pathetic and hollow,

with even the least of his dreams

frozen inside him,

and the meanness gone.

And I greeted him and asked him

into the house,

and lit the lamp,

and looked into his blank eyes

in which at last

I saw what a child must love,

I saw what love might have done

had we loved in time.

--Mary Oliver,

from her volume Dream Work