Burn Away

It has been pretty quiet, lately, for me, in the realm of dreams and visions, anyway; I've been assuming it's one of those periods when things are working themselves out underground, unconsciously, at a level I can't access. But then last night I had this dream:

I am in a meadow with him. He is himself, meaning, he looks like he usually does, like that Dallas-born Monkee;* and in the dream I know him for my husband. He is lying down in the grass and flowers, talking to a male friend who sits next to him. I sit at his feet, and put my hand up the leg of his jeans to rest it on the skin of his ankle, above his socks. When I touch him, he smiles at me. He obviously loves me very much.

Then we are in a store, some sort of home decor/home improvement store (kind of a combination Pier One and Home Depot, it looked like) and we have wandered apart from each other. I look all around but can't find him; and someone else there, either a mother with her young child, or a dwarf (!?) is harassing and physically threatening me, and also trying to make me eat something I don't like (leeks, I believe). I am in a bit of danger, or trouble, and I am afraid. But I can't find him.

Then I am out in the parking lot of the store, and I see his car. It is an old Volkswagen bus, a very specific vehicle, one that used to in real life live in the garage for years and was originally the property of a place called the Music Mansion in the next city over before getting t-boned in an accident, which is how my father ended up with it. My brother has now taken it to his place with the hopes of restoring it. But in the dream it was his, my husband's car. And I see that it has been partially taken apart in the parking lot, and parts of it have been sanded down to the bare metal either to be painted or because it is being cut up, like in a chop shop. I look around and see another car in much the same state; there are two women there working on it. I suspect they have nefarious purposes. I go over to them and grab them each by a wrist, and not gently. They read as lesbians.

I drag them over to the Music Mansion bus with the intention of catching them trying to steal or destroy it; but when I get there he is inside it and it is obvious he is the one working on it, to fix it up, and the lesbians are innocent. They are rightfully annoyed with me, and before I release them I look into their eyes and tell them I am sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion about them. They scowl at me and walk away.

Then I am inside either the same store or a different one; and parts of it are on fire. But the fire, while bright and hot, is not immediately dangerous, and is only spreading slowly. The heat from it does not burn but is merely hot. The perfume counters or cabinets are on fire; I pass by them to the dressing rooms behind them. There are women in there trying on clothes. I am worried about them and tell them to Get out! The place is on fire! but they don't seem concerned. I leave. I find him and tell him; he freaks out because it is the perfume that is on fire, and it's mostly alcohol; he thinks it will explode and makes me run, RUN! to hide behind a car. He doesn't follow, though. It doesn't explode.

So I decide to walk home, though I don't know where he is again. From the outside I see the burning store is faced with metal plates, and it reminds me very much of a newer building over at that local hideously ugly state university, though being newer it's in a different style. It is still very, very, ugly though. I see there is a class inside, going along like nothing is wrong, though the building is burning. Still, it is a very contained burn, and I mean quite contained, as if the building were made out of blocks and only some of them are on fire; as if the fire itself were made up of blocks.

I leave and set off down the road. It is not a long walk; but halfway home I pass a swamp, and the old dead trees there are also on fire. That fire is blocky as well; it forms a flat and precise wall of flame right in line with the sidewalk. I don't trust it, even though it seems fairly well-controlled. I cross to the other side of the street.

Then I am in the Music Mansion and he is driving; we pick up one of his brothers and give him a ride, though it's not far. I think it is much like a city bus.

And then I am back again by the burning store walking home. But I don't know where he is, and I am very sad and worried that we are growing apart; my heart is beginning to break. He has a large family, mostly sisters, and we are all in a group; I walk with one of his brothers-in-law, a kind man with medium-length dreadlocks, sort of Rasta-looking though not a stoner. He is alert and attentive and quite kind. I think he is a little worried about me. We walk back, though I am worried about passing the burning trees again; then I see the Music Mansion bus driving towards us and I think, oh, good, there he is and he'll give me a ride. There is a woman in the passenger seat, one of his sisters who is also a lesbian. But he drives right by, as if he doesn't know me at all. That is too much for me and I collapse in the middle of the road wailing and weeping. Two great heaving sobs and I wake up.

(Yeah, I know, quite an elaborate dream! And there are still details I'm leaving out, never mind the ones that have faded.)

Well then. I lie in bed contemplating all this; but this time, he is not immediately apparent. I am upset and confused, though I know these things are not to be taken literally in a dream. So, since he is not there, for once, I do the next best thing, the thing I always forget to do when interpreting dreams: I go back in and ask the different elements what and why. So it goes something like this:

I say, "Store, what are you?"

And it answers, "I am a building. I am built. I am an edifice, a facade, something created, a framework."

"Why do you look like that ugly building at [that local university]?"

"Because you hate it. I am ugly, yet I am relatively new."

"Ah, so you are not something old."

"No."

Then I ask, "Why are you on fire?"

"Ask the Fire," the store tells me. I roll my eyes. Fine.

"Fire, why are you?"

"You are angry," says the Fire.

"But you are not out of control," I say.

"No. Anger is not always a loss of control. I am contained and I am not harmful, though you are frightened of me. I am powerful but I will not harm you. I am right."

"You are anger?"

"Yes."

"Why are you burning the store?"

"Because it has to come down." I think about this a moment.

Then I ask, "Why the perfume displays? What are they?"

"They are the artificial, the mask of the true scent."

"Why the changing rooms?"

"That is where new clothes, new personas are tried on."

"But the women weren't worried," I say, confused. The place was burning down around them!

"They were ignorant. It will all fall down soon. It is no longer necessary."

"Why was there a class still inside?"

"It is what you have been taught. It is hard to walk away from even when the structure around you is being destroyed."

"What will be left when the store burns down?"

"An empty cleared lot with fertile ashy soil."

"What shall I build there?"

"Don't build anything there. Plant a garden there instead. Make it Paradise."

Oh.

"So why were the trees in the swamp on fire too?"

"They were dead. It must all now go back to ashes, back to soil, back to building blocks, the elemental, down to the molecular level."

Okay. I ask, "What about that first store, the one I was lost in?"

The Store answers again. "Home decor, home building, home. You are making a home."

But I felt so lost and helpless. Oh. Because he was not there, my help was not there.

"He is always there," says the store, apparently on his side.

Hmmm. Even when I can't see him he's there, right?

"Yes, but also, it is proper for you to be the one doing it. He can't do it for you."

"Okay, why the Music Mansion?"

"It is old things made to work again. But ask it yourself."

"Okay Music Mansion bus," and I feel rather silly, even here in my own mind, "what are you?"

"I am travel and the old made new and working again. But you don't like me, do you? In fact it is quite well known that you hate hate hate Volkswagens, right?"

Oh God yes.

"Then it is something that is not suited to you. This will not be done merely by refurbishing the old. You cannot accept the as-is. It must be broken down further, down to the elements; it must be truly transformed."

And then he is there, finally. I am a little annoyed with him. But I jump right in with the questions nonetheless, since I'm on a roll.

I ask him, "What are you showing me this time?" Because it's always to show me. I've learned that much, anyway.

"You are heartbroken," he says, quite compassionately. "You are in mourning, and it needs to be acknowledged."

Ah yes. I am changing and that always involves destruction of the old, and mourning for that which is gone.

"Yes," he says, looking at me steadily. What dark eyes.

But it's so hard, every time. Will these dreams stop when I finally get it?

"Well," he says, "it's not a question of getting it so much as the fact that it will always be part of the process. I suppose if you learn to recognize when you are mourning a change I won't have to show you so much, yeah. But it's not something to realize once and then be done with; it will always be part of the process and every time you change, which you are always doing if you are truly alive, it will come up."

"So what is being destroyed?"

"Something you loved and that you thought loved you."

Something I thought served me?

"Yes."

"But you love me?" Not that I doubt it, but I need to hear it. These dreams always throw me for a loop.

"Oh yes," he says, quite dreamily. "Never fear that."

But then I'm confused and a little concerned. "Who was your sister in the bus? Why was she a lesbian? Why am I dreaming about lesbians as a symbol?"

"I don't know," he says, and shrugs. "What do they represent for you?"

I am uneasy. They were quite stereotyped.

"Stereotype, archetype; they aren't that far apart to the unconscious," he says, unworried.

"But it's not meaningless in life."

"No," he says, "in life you are dealing with full actual humans, of course. But in dreams, it's shorthand for other things. So tell me about the stereotype."

Okay, well, I guess, the stereotype of a lesbian is that she's someone who does not need a man, who is independent, capable, strong, and handy; but she's not beautiful, or at least not society's idea of beautiful. I suppose to put a positive face on it she is not playing along with the feminine crap and is wilfully holding herself outside of the patriarchal rules. Still, though, the stereotype in my head is that butchy lesbians are not beautiful and it doesn't appeal.

He shrugs. "It could just be a different kind of beauty."

I don't know. It's not reading as rich, or magical; it feels too practical. But it's a stereotype, not realistic at all.

"Well that is what we are talking about," he says.

Yeah, I guess. But it's ringing in my conscious mind as unfair. It was just so bleak, such a disappointing view of the future. Is that what I'm condemning myself to, if I take radical feminism too literally? I mean that's kind of stupid, isn't it?

"No," he says, "it's not stupid. Fear is fear. It's not rational, and doesn't care to listen to conscious ideas of fairness or equity, or what you have seen reality to be. Fear makes cardboard cutouts of things."

Ah, yes. That makes sense.

Okay. I ask, "Why did you have so many sisters? Who are they?"

He smiles. "The Muses, Who else?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Really?" I say. "You had nine sisters?"

He shakes his head. "Eight sisters. I'm married to Thalia, remember?"

Oh, yes, I think, and laugh. "Then who was your brother-in-law?"

"That was just me in a different skin. You needed comforting."

I nod. But then I think about the ending of the dream, and it troubles me. Because I'm thinking that my point of view, the me crying and wailing in the middle of the road, is that of what is left behind, the old, while the new (his sister) drives off with him; but he shakes his head.

"No," he says, "that's not how it works. Whatever point of view you are seeing, it is the view from the center, the truth of you. If it's you seeing it then it's you."

So what are my fears, then? A bleak future without you?

"Maybe. But it's not true. I'm here, and I always will be."

But then he looks at me, quite carefully and cannily. Then he says, slowly, and with kindness, as if it is a truth I don't want to hear, "What I think you are beginning to realize, though, is that no one but you can actually do this. I can guide you, I can show you, and I am here, always, but even if it were proper I cannot do it for you. You are the one who must make the change. Only you."

Oh. I can see why that might frighten me.

"Yes," he says. "But you are doing it. In a most splendid fashion."

So, I am the one who set that building on fire?

"Oh yes," he says, and gives me a very knowing, and very vibrant, smile.

So then, what am I destroying?

"Why don't you tell me?" he says, still smiling.

I think about it.

It is ugliness and the practical; it has been built at the expense of beauty. It is something that is good enough, what is needed to get by. But it will no longer do. It represents restrictions.

"Yes," he says, beaming at me. "And it is being burnt away by a clean, hot, brilliant and illuminating anger."

Ah, yes. It is the framework of the past burning away. No wonder I feel lost.

"Yes," he says. "But I am here, in one form or another. Never fear."

And even though I didn't get a ride, I know that home is not far.

"Nope."

And even though those burning trees in the swamp frighten me, I've passed them before and I was all right.

"Yes," he says again. "And you have friends, many friends, the family you've married in to. And they are inspiration and motivation and love and comfort."

Yes, I suppose he is right.

"Yes," he says. "I am. All is well."




*Oh dear God. I don't think I will ever get used to the embarrassment of that.