The Salt Embrace III

The Watcher

Sculpture mix; glazed with nutmeg.

Reprise: The Water-Fox, Sleeping

2011:
Strawberry Creek, Berkeley, CA

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.

Bottle-of-Dreams

That's Chloe, by the way, a dancer of Atlantis, so click the link to know more.

Dreaming Pegasus

I dreamed of Pegasus early this morning.  The horse was trotting down a city street, opened up his wings, and flew up and away.  I stood there, watching that flight in a state of awe, sorry I hadn't a camera in my hand, but knowing better than to dig into my bag for that camera, knowing that the sight needed witnessing for my own sake, as the sun lit Pegasus's silver-gray flanks and wings, as the shadow of the flying horse played across the office building behind him.

And in the dream I never questioned the reality, never doubted that this was Pegasus.

(I love that about dreaming.)

Neoprene Dreams

Or, A Sense of Menace?  Doesn't that first shot seem like a certain type of paperback crime novel cover?

Or, really, the other shots, the accidental photographs . . . .

Shark Dream

Early this morning, I had my very first shark attack dream.  I've been diving since 1978, and I've had plenty of shark dreams, dreams in which I watch sharks swim from shore, dreams in which I seem to swim with sharks deep underwater, dreams menacing and dreams awe-inspiring, but dreams getting attacked . . . first time.  In the dream, I was out on a kayak with a friend, and we were going to free dive.  Somewhere up north--Sonoma or Mendocino coast.  We anchored our boats to kelp, and we got ready to enter the water, planning to drop down into the kelp forest.  For some reason in the dream--for I would never dive in this manner--I dropped my fins and mask & snorkel overboard, and then I swam down to the equipment in the dreamily-overly-clear water.  As I swam down, I could see some sort of body mass and some sort of movement in the near distance, but without my mask, I could not see clearly enough to make out details.  I certainly felt nervous.  At the bottom, I donned my mask and cleared it a bit, using only a little of the air in my lungs, and pulled on both fins as I looked about, spinning slowly to cover the 360 degrees.  There, swimming away, was a large shark.  As I slowly moved upward, trying to kick slowly, easily, calmly, sending out the vibes of functional-fish, not of awkward-fearful-prey, I could see the shark turn and circle and then rush for me.  Of course, I woke just before that open mouth closed on my body . . . .

And, of course, I had to get up, walk around, and drink some water before I could shake loose of that final moment.

Signal Phrase

On Loch Lomond.

In the Footsteps of the Legions

On Hadrian's Wall.
I'd been looking forward to this moment for almost my whole life.

As a boy, in my daydreams, I would walk that wall as a Roman, guarding the border, guarding the Empire . . .
Or, also as that boy, daydreaming, I'd climb and cross that wall as a Celt or Pict, seeking to drive away the invaders . . . .

The Salt Embrace II

Or, In The Locker.

When I was a boy, I wanted to find the Elephants' Graveyard, the ruins of Atlantis, and Davy Jones' (actual) Locker.

Duncan's Falcon-Thoughts

MY MOTHER WOULD BE A FALCONRESS
    --by Robert Duncan, 1919 - 1988

 My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
where I dream in my little hood with many bells
jangling when I’d turn my head.

My mother would be a falconress,
and she sends me as far as her will goes.
She lets me ride to the end of her curb
where I fall back in anguish.
I dread that she will cast me away,
for I fall, I mis-take, I fail in her mission.

She would bring down the little birds.
And I would bring down the little birds.
When will she let me bring down the little birds,
pierced from their flight with their necks broken,
their heads like flowers limp from the stem?

I tread my mother’s wrist and would draw blood.
Behind the little hood my eyes are hooded.
I have gone back into my hooded silence,
talking to myself and dropping off to sleep.

For she has muffled my dreams in the hood she has made me,
sewn round with bells, jangling when I move.
She rides with her little falcon upon her wrist.
She uses a barb that brings me to cower.
She sends me abroad to try my wings
and I come back to her. I would bring down
the little birds to her
I may not tear into, I must bring back perfectly.

I tear at her wrist with my beak to draw blood,
and her eye holds me, anguisht, terrifying.
She draws a limit to my flight.
Never beyond my sight, she says.
She trains me to fetch and to limit myself in fetching.
She rewards me with meat for my dinner.
But I must never eat what she sends me to bring her.

Yet it would have been beautiful, if she would have carried me,
always, in a little hood with the bells ringing,
at her wrist, and her riding
to the great falcon hunt, and me
flying up to the curb of my heart from her heart
to bring down the skylark from the blue to her feet,
straining, and then released for the flight.

My mother would be a falconress,
and I her gerfalcon raised at her will,
from her wrist sent flying, as if I were her own
pride, as if her pride
knew no limits, as if her mind
sought in me flight beyond the horizon.

Ah, but high, high in the air I flew.
And far, far beyond the curb of her will,
were the blue hills where the falcons nest.
And then I saw west to the dying sun--
it seemd my human soul went down in flames.

I tore at her wrist, at the hold she had for me,
until the blood ran hot and I heard her cry out,
far, far beyond the curb of her will

to horizons of stars beyond the ringing hills of the world where the falcons nest
I saw, and I tore at her wrist with my savage beak.
I flew, as if sight flew from the anguish in her eye beyond her sight,
sent from my striking loose, from the cruel strike at her wrist,
striking out from the blood to be free of her.

My mother would be a falconress,
and even now, years after this,
when the wounds I left her had surely healed,
and the woman is dead,
her fierce eyes closed, and if her heart
were broken, it is stilled

I would be a falcon and go free.
I tread her wrist and wear the hood,
talking to myself, and would draw blood.

------------------------------------
Thanks to JP for sharing the poem with me.

After The Paddling And Diving . . . .

Flor de Cana is a memorable rum.

(And, that clipboard. Middle school, high school, college, the warehouse job, the swim instruction job, grad school, community college -- a friend for life, you know?)

Dreaming About Water-Time

Autumnal: Mask

The Sleeper:
sculpture mix; nutmeg and shino glazing, layered; leather cord.
Mask, 2005; photograph, 2012.

Dream: Face Cut

In last night's dream, I lost a very large 3" x 4" rectangular chunk of skin and flesh to my own kayak paddle and a rogue wave/sudden storm scenario. The visual was quite gruesome with red muscle and yellowish fat exposed to the air and to sight. It didn't really bleed and it didn't hurt that much, and those two aspects helped me inside the dream to realize that I was dreaming and so to wake up. 

My dream-thought as the POV widened so that I could see "myself"? Oh, that will be an ugly scar.

Oh, the chunk came out of the right side of my face, my cheek, so that's more than large, yes?

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.

Double Trouble: Recurring Dreams in Tweed (a bit threadbare) and Iron (a bit rusty)

Strange dreams last night: two different recurring threads as I slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke, over and over.

The first thread? Classic teaching dream: final exam time, but I've printed out, copied, and distributed the wrong semester's exam to the wrong class. Good students: they tried to answer the questions, tried to grapple with the topics, until someone came forward to point out that they hadn't read this material at all. I try to salvage something from the situation as I return over and over to this situation in the night.

The second thread? Much more heroic, no less anxious: I'm the squad leader of a band of soldiers, garbed in wool and leather and iron, armed with swords or axes, as we move through ruined battlements, a ruined city, at nightfall, seeking some sort of goal, seeking not to be ambushed in the deepening fog and shadow.  Light comes from the moon and from burning buildings.  Smoke chokes the throat, obscuring that moon and those flames.  Something is hunting us, a troop of men? a monster? The anxiety level is high as I struggle, here too, not to make mistakes, struggle to salvage something from the night's foray, even though in the dream I don't quite know, can't quite grasp the things I know I should know, and there is absolutely no one to ask . . . .

Pipe Dream

Octopus / Belly-Dancer

Octopus: sculpture mix, glazed with transparent brown and celadon; salvaged.

To Em--: Shark-Dream (& Of Fear)

I
Em--
I'll do a quick description of this latest shark dream/nightmare:

I was free diving up and down in the ocean, but the visibility was great and there were all sorts of people diving with tanks and doing stuff, odd stuff, like grilling fish underwater with cars anchored in the water, parked, floating, and such.

In the dream, I swam all the way down to the bottom here, and people were impressed and I was happy with that, but I really needed to head up, and I paused to accept a bit of underwater-grilled salmon from one of my students this term, an older fellow who was the nicest guy AND had faced great adversities, and I swam up and pulled myself onto the roof of this floating car, anchored with a giant chain to the bottom, but floating, sort of, with the car top at the surface.

I pull myself out and sprawl across the top of the car, enjoying my grilled salmon. (Underwater grilling?) Then, the shadow of a large shark--tiger shark, I think, but definitely not a great white shark, but big and aggressive and commanding--swims below. I can't really see very well from the car top, and I'm lying down and putting my face in the water trying to see the shark, worrying about all those tank divers and my student, etc, but the car keeps tipping and I'm worried it's going to lose whatever air is holding it up in place and that it will sink, and the shark is circling around and around.

I keep having to shift position, and I can't keep the shark in sight, and I am wondering if I should swim to somewhere else, but I'm the only free diver and I'll be silhouetted, and ... and ... and... I'm pretty worried, but I'm worried about everyone else a bit more than myself (which is a good feeling) and then

the shark is pushing against the leg I've got hanging off the side of the floating car, pushing against me, not biting, but maybe he's grabbing at someone below, so I'm beating the shark's body where I can reach it, beating and beating with my clenched fist, and I reach for my small dive knife, and

I wake up gasping.

A fairly usual night of dreaming for me.

II
Oh Em--,
I'm not that cool, though I aspire to be. I'm a bit afraid of being afraid. And, so far in life, I hope that I've stepped up as needed, not let fear get in the way.  (Maybe I'm not remembering the failures right now, but still hoping to not let fear take over in the future.)

I know that my imagination can be so strong that I have to ignore it or overpower it sometimes, and yet I also try to stay true to my intuition. Case: if it's feeling sharky out there, what do I do? Resist the over-imagination or respect the intuition? Can I tell which is which?

If I've been relaxed up until the sharky thoughts start coming in, I tend to respect the anxiety. I'll keep diving or paddling and keep checking the vibe. Finally, if I can be a little relaxed and yet still feel the sharkiness coming, I'll go in to shore or I'll not dive over the side. That's been an issue two or three times, and once I was solo in a very remote place, so it seemed wise to respect the feeling.

If I am imagining too much on the drive to the site, or I've been watching Jaws or something, I'll work harder to resist the fear. I'll push further just to test myself. Unless I've psyched myself out completely. Then, I'll do 20 or 30 minutes and head in. Only happened twice so far, ever.

Most of the time, I have no thoughts or just one or two thoughts of sharks, I knock wood on my head, and I keep diving or paddling.
--MD

Non-fiction: two passages from the correspondence I've had with a friend, lightly edited.  Gist--or roughish notes, in both cases.  I'm posting now not to lose the material, essentially, for I know I'll come back here and want to edit and revise for more accurate vision, more attentive assessments.