Skip, one of my late dear net friends, was on both of those boards with me and I first met him on my very first venture into English language message boards. Unfortunately I can't even find a way-back record of that site called Access Denied and so perhaps its all lost behind the veils of time. I only have one screen image of it and so I link it here. As I have mentioned on my blog post, the loss, that his family and his friends and I felt such an emptiness after his passing. There are a few other members from those sites still here following my blog but sadly many of us just drifted away never to be seen of or heard from again.
Hitomi and I had our evening meal downstairs with my brother and Rina and then we'd simply returned to our apartment and sat together. I was reading my current novel, Daisy’s Life's by Banana Yoshimoto and she with her gossip magazines sat quietly before we retired for the night. It wasn't a special night and perhaps it was more note-worthy as being one of those very quiet nights in together relaxing with a book and a drink.
I don't remember falling asleep or being overly tired. We'd got into bed and talked for about five or ten minutes as we settled down and then perhaps I had drifted away as the silence and darkness stole my consciousness. How much time had passed I cannot recall, perhaps none at all! I remember looking up at the ceiling and thinking that I'm going to be tired at the office tomorrow if I can't get back to sleep. Then I wondered if 'getting back to sleep was correct. Had I already slept or was I still trying to fall to sleep? I didn't move or readjust my position but just lay there quite still as if the stillness could again steal my mind. Then I thought I saw the light at the edges of the door, I'd left the light on I thought and I got up and went into the living room and was quite surprised to see an old man sitting at my computer.
Oddly I can't recall if the light was on or it appeared to be daylight and the thought of my home security or personal safety just didn't seem to occur to me either but perhaps he sensed something in me.
"Don't be afraid little one" he said to me softly without turning his head away from the screen.
"Uncle Skip why are you here and at such a late hour?"
No one in the world except for him has ever called me "little one" and that makes me wonder if dreams have a language of their own, English in this case, rather than just impressions of one.
"I'm not really here little one and you should know that I am merely stepping into a room that holds fond memories." he said turning to face me.
He wore a radiant and warm smile yet still I was worried by his words. It was as if he could see into my mind as I began to fear that I was only dreaming and by knowing that I was dreaming, I would miss the chance to talk with him because it would all evaporate and I would wake up. There is this concept that if an object appears in a story, a novel or a movie then it is there to serve some purpose to the story. It's usually quite apart from the considerations of logic, morals and meanings. What doesn't play a role should not exist and what necessity does require has to exist. This is the base value of dramaturgy and so it apparently is in dreams too.
In his hand he held my gold locket. I never wear it because its a very precious keepsake from my late Mother and I would be absolutely devastated if I should lose it. Inside it are the photos of my Mother and Father when they were young adults and newly married.
"What is it like where you are from" I asked. A question we may all ask of those passed over I feel.
"You take the love with you and enjoy total freedom" he replied smiling at me.
After this remark, the fear that I was waking became quite dominant and I did wake up. It was one of the strangest ways of waking up too. My sleeping body lies in a roughly north south position and as I wake my body feels all wrong as if I had been in an east west position and was slowly rotating into place. Once my spirit form aligned with my physical, I felt much better.
"You take the love with you" is a line right out of the movie "Ghost" and I could poke my brain with my finger for being quite shallow with such dialog line fillers. I looked at my clock and it was 3:04 and meant that we'd been in bed for almost four hours and still it only felt like five or ten minutes.
I actually got up out of bed and opened my walnut jewelery box to look upon my locket and ensure it was still there. I put it away safely and got back into bed. It seems I never disturb Hitomi because as I like to tell her, 'she could sleep through an earthquake' and she probably could. She has that precious knack of being able to fall asleep anywhere, on the train, in the car and even on a chair in my office as she waits for me and when she's in bed she sleeps deeply and the only thing that can wake her is her alarm. I cuddled up to my dormant desire and thought about my dream because by doing so I would remember it.
Who amongst us is truly free?
We imagine that we are free and desire to be free but really if you consider it deeply then many of the people who would suddenly become really free would be in a sorry state. Imagine yourself on a deserted island, naked and you have no items from our modern world. Can you clothe yourself and make a fire and can you keep warm and make a shelter? Can you find water to drink and can you eat? After you tire of coconuts and berries can you catch and kill your food? This would form part of the basis of real freedom. The civilization that we are in despite geographical and cultural differences is an obstacle to your freedom because from birth you grow into a niche in your society. Your choices and the choices of others heavily influence the position or positions you have and will attain. Civilization has defined areas and everything is categorized. We are the hive. We build walls and fences and being fenced in tells you that you are not free. The only ever truly free race it seems were the Australian Aborigines who maintained a fenceless civilization. They went where they wanted and did what they wanted as their lives unfolded in their "walk-abouts". When the British arrived and built fences in which to keep their livestock, the Aborigines never understood the concept at all. The British proceeded to class them as simple, anti-social and therefore dangerous savages and they were driven far into the outback and away from the orderly, boundary drawn, fenced in society of modern man.
Such seems the way for many societies of our world. The America's also suffered this treatment but that's a whole other story and I'm sure the citizens of those nations today might take offense at such a thought and offer justifiable excuses for our collective barbaric histories. Even Eichmann had an excuse for what he did saying he was merely the design technician and not the executioner.
I'd be interested to know what your idea of freedom is if you care to comment.
I'm sure it would mean many different things to many different people.
It was nice to dream of someone special and in a way I feel like he came to me (or I went to him) and he let me know he is fine. I'm still struggling to understand what the locket in his hand meant. Where are the dream interpretors when you need them?
Momo, Often we dream of those who we feel a closeness to, of those we hold dear in our hearts, especially when they are no longer with us to turn to in time of need or just to talk to. In our dreams those times return to us and once again they are in life and we hear them as we once did, we take comfort in their surreal presence of our dreams. Often we wish for those times to return each night we slip off into that world of our unconscience thoughts, but we find they only return as they wish, even as we lay there slipping off into that nether world thinking of how much we miss them and enjoyed them being a part of our life and how they affected us for that little bit of time we kept to share with them. It is nice to know that in some sense they have not left us, that they are there in our memories, our dreams and more important, our hearts. Lovely post Momo, it made me think of days long gone in my life. Thank you.
Later...
Smiling Pig
May 29, 2010 4:39 AM