index of breath, pt. 1

today, i went to bed around 4:30pm...i woke up at 1:40am and remembered my dream:

I dreamed I went to see Lindsey Knott's place (she is a friend). She was having a party and when I arrived there were about thirty people scattered about already. Lindsey was living in what appeared to be a large warehouse; it seemed to have once been a factory of some sort. I had been there before and apparently, there had been some renovations since I had last visited. I looked up and said "Ah, they put in skylights." She said "Yes, they each weigh ten pounds. They sent them in the mail and I put them in myself." There were two large skylights made of opaque white glass and must have measured 6'x9'...that being the case, it seemed very unlikely to me that Lindsey could have installed these skylights by herself (even if she was not pregnant in the dream). "How did you get them in?" and she said "Oh, I just got a ladder and did it one day." It is to be noted that the ladder would have had to be more than 30 feet tall. We continued to talk about the renovations that had been made. I looked in the corner and realized it was much cleaner than I recalled. I commented on how much nicer it looked since they removed the complex system of air vents that had formerly been in one corner and the industrial assembly line which had taken up another, she agreed.

Soon after this conversation, I found myself walking down a dirt path at what appeared to be 6pm, right before twilight. Around me was a sparse forest of pine trees. The path split two ways; one was leading to my left to where people were socializing and the other way led down to a serene rocky overlook and below it one could see the valley below. I was holding a bag of tobacco in my hand. I noticed that it appeared to be weed, but I knew it was only tobacco. There was not a lot left and I was looking for a place to sit down and roll myself a cigarette. I started down the path to go where people were. There was a basketball court with about 15 people talking, going this way and that, etc. It appeared as though school had just let out and people were waiting on rides. I also noticed that around the basketball court there were several large boulders. I was making my way to one of these to roll my cigarette when someone said hello to me. I looked and noticed that it was a customer from Starbucks that I was not very fond of. In real life, this customer is sort of pastor. He comes in and buys a hot tea, which is less than $2...that's fine, but the problem is that he makes us put 3 honeys in it for him. I have insisted on several occasions that this is just not how things are done and that everyone else puts their own honey in and why can't he? Ultimately though, he always looks like he's about to start crying and I will just do it. He insists also that the honeys be put in before the water so that they will melt (as if the honey would not melt if you put it in after you had put in the 200 degree water). He also wants us to stir it for him and this is usually where I don't budge. I find pastors are among our worst customers. In any case, he walks up to me in the dream and says "Hey, I noticed you're running low on bud. Here you go." and he hands me two large nuggets of weed. "Oh no," I say "I really don't..." "No, it's fine" he interjects and continues on his way past me down the path.

I continue walking and find he had dropped a few more nuggets of marijuana on the ground and put those in my bag as well. In the dream, I do not object to having what seems like $200 of weed. I am almost at the court and the boulders at this point and I see a girl walk by. I realized almost a second too late that this is my spanish teacher, señorita Morgan, but it is her as she would have been about 10 years ago. She appeared to be about 20 years old. I was about to say hello to her, and then I realized that she did not know me. Perhaps she did not know me yet because she was so young.

I decided that I would go home. I turned away from the court and made for the lines of people I saw. I guess these were lines of people that were waiting on buses to go home. When I was among the people in line, I realized also that I was inside again. Across the room, I noticed an older man that I know as Dick C., another customer from work. In real life, he is a retired artist who comes to my store almost everyday with his friends and orders coffee in a porcelain mug. It hit me, as I saw him in this setting, that he was not retired anymore, that he was now a bus driver. I wanted to avoid him (as I want to avoid any customer when not at work) because I felt embarrassed for him. I don't think there is anything wrong with driving a bus, but I knew that I was not supposed to know, or perhaps I was embarrassed for him because he was embarrassed that in the winter of his life in which he had done what he had loved, he had settled to drive a bus for extra money. Perhaps it was because of the economy. He did end up seeing me though and I of course exchanged pleasantries with him...he in his confident booming voice, me shyly trying to appease the elderly the way all young people do.

and then the dream ended.