The majority of grown men who fish do not appreciate chubby ten year old girls telling them matter of factly that they're filleting improperly-- which I did, many times,"There'll be bones in the walleye if you do it like that." I'd say from the doorway of the fish cleaning house- as we called it.
It sat in the gully away from the office and cabins because fish smell-- they smell even worse when they're dead-- a bucket of their guts often resting in a corner.
I loved to watch people clean fish; there's an art to doing it correctly, preserving the most meat, the best filet.
When the rusty old screen door slammed, I'd go running down to the stinky old building.
Then after they left squeeze the swim bladders in my fingers.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
50+, 25-30, 15-20, 5-10, 6 or less. (Words that is.)
We thought,"what the hell," and went up to the cabin anyway despite it being January and the place having no heat and Leah's mom telling us the pipes would be frozen because her deadbeat dad had been too "toasted" to maintain it like he should have-- we took the Jeep.
On the way we discussed the temperature and how we're all gonna be fucked when the last glacier melts and all the nut job East and West coast livers invade Minnesota 'cause their villas are flooded.
We four by foured it up the driveway, unloaded, and when we stopped moving realized as the sweat on our necks began to freeze, that coming may not have been the best idea.
Leah suggested cooking might warm us-- especially cooking with booze, so she did.
Coriander and rosemary chicken, side of whiskey.
On the way we discussed the temperature and how we're all gonna be fucked when the last glacier melts and all the nut job East and West coast livers invade Minnesota 'cause their villas are flooded.
We four by foured it up the driveway, unloaded, and when we stopped moving realized as the sweat on our necks began to freeze, that coming may not have been the best idea.
Leah suggested cooking might warm us-- especially cooking with booze, so she did.
Coriander and rosemary chicken, side of whiskey.
Living In Dreams
I've been waking myself up with my own voice every night for the past week. After a particularly pleasant dream on Saturday, I began describing its details to a friend (who was not present) while still asleep. I awoke saying aloud,"And it was so cool because it was so real, you know?" Then opened my eyes and immediately wished I could go back to sleep.
Throughout the remainder of the day I reminisced fondly on the trip my new friends and I had taken to a festival the night before and of how kind and accepting they all were. I recalled the effortlessness in which I could move and breathe (unlike my corporal life) and the mannerisms of the girl I connected with most; her odd refusal to use the door of her house, always crawling through a window. I was so at ease with all those people. Painlessly I approached them speaking with nary a stammer-- eye contact and all. I cracked clever jokes and made relevant, intellectual comments on conversational topics; I was a (humble) hit. It was as if it had always been so simple for me to talk to people and even if it hadn't, these people weren't the sort to mind-- my skulking awkwardness would never have been a deal breaker for them.
All through the drone of most days, snippets of dreams I've had over decades will flutter through my consciousness-- which is a relatively new development. They have never failed to be acutely detailed, whether or not they're enjoyable, but as the day shambles on more often than not their residual affects fade into and are replaced by actual life. I've been noticing lately that the opposite is happening and although that might be unnerving to most, since addressing it consciously, I find myself welcoming these broadcasts of displaced memories. I'll be smiling midday about something someone in a dream said, then having to pause to either remind myself it didn't actually happen, or to think critically about whether or not it did.
Because my dreams are much more pleasant and exciting than life, I've been sleeping a lot. (I suppose a professional would diagnose this as depression, certainly always a factor, but it seems different this time.) Though, even when there's some responsibility lurking in the day, if a worthwhile dream is happening, I'll sleep through it and reschedule for the next week so it's frantic and busy.
I hate sleep because it's often elusive so consequently I'm often tired, and I love it because not only is my mind reset upon waking, but also I have lived an entirely alternate reality (a frequently much more fulfilling and pleasurable one). And it changes every night, unlike real life, so prior to slumber I have something new and interesting to look forward to. I can fly in my dream universe, rarely am I judged harshly, people interact with one another rather than stare into screens, money has no place, there's magic and mystery and pretty people who want to hold my hand. I'm appreciated and valued by those I appreciate and value. I've had more than one entire years long love affair in a night's sleep-- whose smirking, blushing warmth has taken days to slowly vanish from my mind's eye.
Now and then celebrities will star in my dreams or have cameos as a friend's parent or sibling. My favorites so far have involved Maggie Smith (always a delight), Meryl Streep (a fox at any age), Nicolas Cage (oddly enough, my childhood celebrity crush), Courtney Cox (no idea) and John Goodman as Dan Conner (whom, if he was a real person, I would marry without hesitation had I any desire to be with a man ever again).
Sometimes I'll be some version of myself, in others I'm male bodied, or a woman who is nothing like me physically or mentally, or I'll be completely omnipresent-- as if I'm watching a movie. In some I'm the main character and in others I've been an extra existing only in the background. I kill people, I'm killed, weird sex happens, great sex happens, incredible transcendent conversations, time travel, gun fights, zombies and monsters, contact with extraterrestrial life, and when I wake up (whether or not I am rested) I feel satisfied and alive and part of something important.
This kind of relationship with sleep and dreaming I suppose could be considered problematic; especially considering how often I've been asking myself, why should I reach out to her/him-- what's the point. Because people don't have time for other people anymore, and when they do, my insecure and sweating, stammering, nervous-laughing character allows for only very patient and empathetic folks. Those with weaker dispositions who are less tolerant or more important find me frustrating and haven't the time to wait out my hemming and hawing perspiration for the hour or so it takes for me to become some semblance of relaxed and comfortable.
Of course the internet is an option-- where I am able to weave a clever and well-worded web of intrigue before anyone sees how painfully distressing face to face interaction frequently is for me. But as everything on the internet proves to be, these connections are fleeting and superficial, and before long I'm waiting for someone else to stumble along seeking momentary kinship.
What's unclear to me about that whole process, meeting people and making connections and such, is why everyone out there is doing the same thing yet many are so swift to blow fellow dreamers off-- disregard them as unworthy, vapid, or kooky. (Because everyone searching for a someone is most definitely a dreamer.) It's an odd paradox perpetuated by the society in which we live-- nothing is ever good enough, there's always better, the grass is always greener, and other overused euphemisms.
What's wrong then with preferring my sleeping dreams over my waking ones? Who's to say which life is more meaningful or authentic? Don't most of us lead three separate lives anyway-- person to person, screen to screen, and our sleeping dream lives? Some of us clearly place more importance on screen to screen versus person to person, deluding ourselves into believing they're one in the same-- always performing on the record and for the world. Placing more importance on dream life than on person to person life (by comparison) doesn't seem as misguided, but probably indicates some level of insanity. Yet, many an invention and work of fiction have originated from a capable person's dreams. They contain insight ripe for the picking and are a safe conduit for raw emotion that might otherwise fester and rot.
So, thinking more often about dreams than actual life can be illuminating on many levels as long as a person can differentiate between the two and see dreams as tools for introspection not as realities. Although it would be lovely were that differentiation unnecessary and we were allowed to exist in a constant state of subterfuge, never having to accept that a friend has died, because we can always eat veggies and peanut sauce with him in that other universe. And although after such a tragedy in real life, it may be too painful for the close friends who knew and loved you both to even see you anymore, in your dreams you're still inseparable confidants. But spending all your time in a dream universe is unrealistic and impossible for someone who isn't completely bonkers.
It might be better then, to live equally in two meaningful worlds: as a dreamer while awake and as a pragmatist while asleep-- taking life less seriously and considering the innate value in dreams. I can live actual life by attaching myself to art and creation with every fiber of my being-- writing about the significance of the close friendships I've had and the lives I've lead both in and out of dreams. Because I know I'm not alone-- that is to say, I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.
Throughout the remainder of the day I reminisced fondly on the trip my new friends and I had taken to a festival the night before and of how kind and accepting they all were. I recalled the effortlessness in which I could move and breathe (unlike my corporal life) and the mannerisms of the girl I connected with most; her odd refusal to use the door of her house, always crawling through a window. I was so at ease with all those people. Painlessly I approached them speaking with nary a stammer-- eye contact and all. I cracked clever jokes and made relevant, intellectual comments on conversational topics; I was a (humble) hit. It was as if it had always been so simple for me to talk to people and even if it hadn't, these people weren't the sort to mind-- my skulking awkwardness would never have been a deal breaker for them.
All through the drone of most days, snippets of dreams I've had over decades will flutter through my consciousness-- which is a relatively new development. They have never failed to be acutely detailed, whether or not they're enjoyable, but as the day shambles on more often than not their residual affects fade into and are replaced by actual life. I've been noticing lately that the opposite is happening and although that might be unnerving to most, since addressing it consciously, I find myself welcoming these broadcasts of displaced memories. I'll be smiling midday about something someone in a dream said, then having to pause to either remind myself it didn't actually happen, or to think critically about whether or not it did.
Because my dreams are much more pleasant and exciting than life, I've been sleeping a lot. (I suppose a professional would diagnose this as depression, certainly always a factor, but it seems different this time.) Though, even when there's some responsibility lurking in the day, if a worthwhile dream is happening, I'll sleep through it and reschedule for the next week so it's frantic and busy.
I hate sleep because it's often elusive so consequently I'm often tired, and I love it because not only is my mind reset upon waking, but also I have lived an entirely alternate reality (a frequently much more fulfilling and pleasurable one). And it changes every night, unlike real life, so prior to slumber I have something new and interesting to look forward to. I can fly in my dream universe, rarely am I judged harshly, people interact with one another rather than stare into screens, money has no place, there's magic and mystery and pretty people who want to hold my hand. I'm appreciated and valued by those I appreciate and value. I've had more than one entire years long love affair in a night's sleep-- whose smirking, blushing warmth has taken days to slowly vanish from my mind's eye.
Now and then celebrities will star in my dreams or have cameos as a friend's parent or sibling. My favorites so far have involved Maggie Smith (always a delight), Meryl Streep (a fox at any age), Nicolas Cage (oddly enough, my childhood celebrity crush), Courtney Cox (no idea) and John Goodman as Dan Conner (whom, if he was a real person, I would marry without hesitation had I any desire to be with a man ever again).
Sometimes I'll be some version of myself, in others I'm male bodied, or a woman who is nothing like me physically or mentally, or I'll be completely omnipresent-- as if I'm watching a movie. In some I'm the main character and in others I've been an extra existing only in the background. I kill people, I'm killed, weird sex happens, great sex happens, incredible transcendent conversations, time travel, gun fights, zombies and monsters, contact with extraterrestrial life, and when I wake up (whether or not I am rested) I feel satisfied and alive and part of something important.
This kind of relationship with sleep and dreaming I suppose could be considered problematic; especially considering how often I've been asking myself, why should I reach out to her/him-- what's the point. Because people don't have time for other people anymore, and when they do, my insecure and sweating, stammering, nervous-laughing character allows for only very patient and empathetic folks. Those with weaker dispositions who are less tolerant or more important find me frustrating and haven't the time to wait out my hemming and hawing perspiration for the hour or so it takes for me to become some semblance of relaxed and comfortable.
Of course the internet is an option-- where I am able to weave a clever and well-worded web of intrigue before anyone sees how painfully distressing face to face interaction frequently is for me. But as everything on the internet proves to be, these connections are fleeting and superficial, and before long I'm waiting for someone else to stumble along seeking momentary kinship.
What's unclear to me about that whole process, meeting people and making connections and such, is why everyone out there is doing the same thing yet many are so swift to blow fellow dreamers off-- disregard them as unworthy, vapid, or kooky. (Because everyone searching for a someone is most definitely a dreamer.) It's an odd paradox perpetuated by the society in which we live-- nothing is ever good enough, there's always better, the grass is always greener, and other overused euphemisms.
What's wrong then with preferring my sleeping dreams over my waking ones? Who's to say which life is more meaningful or authentic? Don't most of us lead three separate lives anyway-- person to person, screen to screen, and our sleeping dream lives? Some of us clearly place more importance on screen to screen versus person to person, deluding ourselves into believing they're one in the same-- always performing on the record and for the world. Placing more importance on dream life than on person to person life (by comparison) doesn't seem as misguided, but probably indicates some level of insanity. Yet, many an invention and work of fiction have originated from a capable person's dreams. They contain insight ripe for the picking and are a safe conduit for raw emotion that might otherwise fester and rot.
So, thinking more often about dreams than actual life can be illuminating on many levels as long as a person can differentiate between the two and see dreams as tools for introspection not as realities. Although it would be lovely were that differentiation unnecessary and we were allowed to exist in a constant state of subterfuge, never having to accept that a friend has died, because we can always eat veggies and peanut sauce with him in that other universe. And although after such a tragedy in real life, it may be too painful for the close friends who knew and loved you both to even see you anymore, in your dreams you're still inseparable confidants. But spending all your time in a dream universe is unrealistic and impossible for someone who isn't completely bonkers.
It might be better then, to live equally in two meaningful worlds: as a dreamer while awake and as a pragmatist while asleep-- taking life less seriously and considering the innate value in dreams. I can live actual life by attaching myself to art and creation with every fiber of my being-- writing about the significance of the close friendships I've had and the lives I've lead both in and out of dreams. Because I know I'm not alone-- that is to say, I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.
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