Raven on a Writing Desk

I keep having these really vivid dreams in the morning. The themes of my concerns aren't significantly different from what you'd expect, but it seems like some things are just odd.

See, two days ago, I was having a dream that I was in this hotel. And this hotel has appeared in my dreams before. Sometimes it is next to a spaceport. Sometimes it is next to a Denny's or a Holiday Inn. It has a few distinct features:

1. It's a convention hotel. It has massive ballrooms and lobbies and technical crawl spaces. When I'm there, I'm always running into someone I know, or a big crowd of people.

2. Apparently, it's a mutant. There's specifically one section of the hotel in which the floor numbers count backwards.

3. It has, most obviously, an escalator in the middle of a great high lobby. The escalator goes from the first floor to the third floor, passing the second floor (arranged like a mezzanine around the center lobby) altogether. In my dream it is just a huge sweeping mobile staircase crossing the atrium without any visible support. Everything around it looks white or clear glass.

Two nights ago, I dreamed of this hotel. In the dream, I don't remember why, but I was stuck there, so I rented a room. I got my room and left with a bunch of stuff. And then somewhere I got naked. And I realized it must be a dream because I am only naked in public without having sex or getting arrested when I am dreaming.

Then I looked at the atrium, and the escalator was gone. There were even refloored patches where the top and bottom of the escalator would be. And so (for some reason), this meant I had to go around trying to get into my room. I had a purse and a handful of stuff, but the key was missing. I got a hotel staff member to let me into my room, then it turned out it WASN'T my room, so I gathered up all my stuff again (no pockets!) and went out into the hall, where I immediately ran into my old band director.

Last night, I had an even weirder dream, that involved typesetting and a homicidal maniac. And I couldn't put the change in the cash register because someone was using it to sort out random bits of stuff --- some of which was costume jewelry. Meanwhile, the homicidal maniac's disk of his best work is running a slideshow on a TV screen that's facing out the window (I think this is a .... music store?) and I keep trying to cover it with a blanket.

I guess my normal life is boring.

Happy Father's Day, everyone!

This is the point at which I start marking 15 years since my father's death in 1991. I don't feel it the way I used to, and I've gone over some of this territory before, but I always feel like I should mark it. It's my own personal type of "holy day" (and I have others, and they do populate after a bit!)...

Also, I was looking at old diaries and journals, and thinking about how I always wrote down things I thought I'd want to remember later. When I was a preteen, this seemed to consist largely of what we were watching on television; I'd just become aware of the idea that shows stopped running and wanted to write about the ones I'd liked, quoted, fantasized about, etc. The interesting thing to me is the idea that i was unaware largely of how much I changed/was changing, and found very little need to write down the thoughts and attitudes that I followed, thinking them inevitable and a part of me, and unlikely to disappear. Now, I wonder if I'll ever be in touch with that child again.

So, in honor of myself and my relationship with my father, some things I want to remember, but think I always will:

1. This is the season of my father's passing. This is the season of my father. He was born June 30, married June 20, and died June 21. From Father's Day to June 30 is his season for my whole life.

2. My father was a Baptist, a deacon, an insurance salesman, an educator, an athlete, a victim of Lou Gehrig's disease, the one and only lover of my mother, the only son and middle child of his family.

3. My father was raised on an egg farm. He drove a truck by the time he was 13. He played football in high school, and my mother was his sweetheart during his senior year.

4. My father wanted to go into forestry, but he failed chemistry in college. He majored in physical education instead, and became a football coach, then a guidance counselor, then a principal, then a headmaster. As a child, I knew him as the principal of Sally Jones Elementary School in Port Charlotte, Fla., and later as the headmaster of Oak Mountain Academy of Carollton, Ga., where I was enrolled in 3rd and 4th grade. Although my father worked a lot, those were some of the happiest years for me because the campus was beautiful, the buildings were wonderful (haunted and old and musty), and my father was there.

5. My father was a workaholic and passed his type-A busy streak on to me, as well as his ability to change accents and speech styles to suit his audience. We're very adaptable and industrious. My father left education (and salaried employment) so that his 14-hour work days might yield more fruit.

6. My father joined State Farm Insurance Companies in 1979 and quickly exceeded all expectations as a salesman. He won many awards and rapid promotion to agency manager. We moved to Rome, Ga., Jan. 1, 1982, and stayed there, in that position and that home, until his death.

7. Ironically, my father may have lived longer because he fell ill. He suffered three minor heart attacks two years before he died. If his illness had not literally forced him to slow down and take better care of himself, these could well have killed him. In addition he had time to buy more medical and life insurance, which may not have been available had he been able to continue to assume he was in good health.

8. My father believed in me and was proud of me, but he wasn't perfect. Our most bitter fights were over personal relationships, and the way I didn't deal with them the way he wanted. My argument is that if he thought I should be a strong, liberated, career woman, he shouldn't expect me to eschew all relationships with men, and treat them all as if their only interest in interacting with me hinged on my possession of a vagina.

9. More understandable and realistic was the liberal/conservative split that went with our generations and ages. I wanted to be a flower child. He believed -- no kidding -- that he should vote for people who would uphold Biblical law as the law of the land. He wasn't a theocrat, he just thought they were the correct rules one should live one's life by. My liberal argument was that, if this were true, then we should vote for more social programs and charity to our fellow human beings. I don't know what he thinks of this now -- I doubt it's any longer a concern -- but I've swung completely around over the last 16 to 18 years and now believe that neither of these goals should be enacted by government.

10. Speaking of larger issues, I had a very touching conversation with my father a few weeks before he died. He asked me why the rain forests were supposed to be important to conservation. I explained what little I understood, but it was significant to me that, so near the end of his life, he should try not to be rigid, try to learn, and try to reach out to me, and where he thought I was.

11. My father never drank, never smoked, never did drugs, never slept with any woman but my mother, was never dishonest that I know of, and certainly never in his business dealings. He was respected by everyone who knew him as an upright man and a true Christian. I rarely ever saw him cry. He was strong, and could fact facts.

12. My father was an incorrigible punster and loved jokes. He loved clean humor (think Bill Cosby). He loved children and had a cache of jokes, stories, riddles and poems that he would pull out and regale random children with (cousins, friends at the bus stop, strangers waiting in line). I don't think men today get to interact with children the way my father did. He was the sort of person you'd expect to be a coach or scoutmaster.

13. The worst thing my father ever did to me was either take me to church or pretend to lock me in the walk-in freezer. I'm pretty sure he wasn't aware that either one of these things was toxic for me.

14. On the other hand, he installed a light in the closet under the stairs, and otherwise gave me little spaces to retreat to (other kids, I suppose, might have had a treehouse). He taught me to read, almost by accident, and told me that as long as I had that, I could learn and do anything I wanted to.

That's all for now.

Happy Father's Day.