THESE AWFUL DREAMS

I AM CARRYING AN AWFUL AMOUNT OF LUGGAGE
( I guess thats what I have been doing in my real life as well, carrying an awful amount of luggage)
A very heavy suitcase, another small suitcase, then another suitcase, (I guess its my sister's suitcase )
Then on top of all that I am carrying some clothes.
One dark green blanket, a light one but blanket nevertheless, its a dark green blanket with reddish green embroidery at the edges and some other stuff, a jumper or two……Imagine that, the heaviness of it all.

A very transparent dream with a clear message that I have been and still am carrying a huge luggage on my shoulders and the luggage is about the family.
One can call it love perhaps but that love has occupied my whole existence.  But love can't be so heavy.  Isn't love supposed to be light and airy?  Don't you have the feeling of floating upwards towards the sky like the singing birds migrating to different lands in different seasons?

Why the love should drag you down?
I am so terrified of the luggage of my dreams that I carry nothing when I travel which I don't do much any more.  Every thing fatigues me mentally.  My mind is fried up with that fatigue.
That heaviness in the limbs, that heaviness in the heart, that sinking feeling of the dread on the other side…..The other side of the ocean, the heaviness of this side of the ocean, the tension, the worry, the un-known dread, the sense of being no where, the sense of no accomplishments, the sense of nothing, nothingness…..I guess Beckett said it better than me but for me sometimes, no that is a lie, most of the time I have the feeling, the sense of nothingness in my gut….

I look at the herds of humanity rushing by so very busy…
I hear people getting books published….
People getting awards…
People getting rewards…
Being made a big fuss of….
And I say to myself, "Doesn't matter, they are all going to die any way."

Why am I constantly thinking like that for some time now?
I wasn't like that
I know we are all going to die
But I never thought like that before
Even if they are all going to die according to me but they are still having a life
They are not thinking of death all day long, they are just getting awards and going to the party.
I was like that  a few years ago
At least I was going to the party if not getting awards.
I always thought I was the real award.  "ME"  Was my award.  I was my own reward.
I loved myself once
Did I?
I don't know now
You just put doubt in my mind about me loving myself
But I did
I loved my family and through that I loved myself
And then I started to be angry at them for hurting me….
I thought they hurt me, some of them, some of them died and the rest hurt me, hurt my feelings
So I stopped loving them as much as I did but then I stopped loving myself completely…
I guess I was taking revenge on myself for not loving them as much as I did in the past…
and thats when I started to Isolate myself from the rest…………
Now everything thing seems meaningless not only my life but every one else's life as well.

When the Tony awards were announced the other day, I said to myself,"Never mind, they are all going to die any way, award or no award."
I mean I have no right to think like that about other people's lives but I think it any way, who cares about who has the right to say or do or think anything anymore.  Thats why thinking process is one of the greatest secret God given to us.  We can quietly think of anything, we can hate people, wish them dead, hate their skin color, ridicule their height, their weight, their clothes, their style, their manners, their names, their religions, we can be full of hate in our thinking as long as we don't articulate it out loud as long as we remain quiet and silent we can think whatever we want.

Its awful, this kind of mind set but how do we know that other people don't have it.  Eery one hates every one else in this modern era of life style or no one hates or love any one because every one is so self involved and has no time for others.  Like I don't wish any ones death but this reality of death keeps staring at my face all day long so thats why when any one achieves any thing I say to my self quietly, "Doesn't matter they are all going to die anyway."  Perhaps its because there had been far too many deaths in my family.  My mind is so traumatized that it occupies me day and night.

I guess for that reasons the awful dreams should be a good idea because they only frighten me during the night but some kind of vague anxiety lives with me during the day lately…..
What is it?  I have no Idea but its there, very much there.  Some times there is not much difference between the dreams and the day light reality of this most difficult situation of feeling so desperately
alone with no hope and no friends and no community……………….

I was talking to a complete stranger the other day in a cafe, somehow he was sitting very close to me
and looked like a foreigner like me and started to talk….He was from Portugal but born here but
had the sensibility of an outsider.  He said that when we come here we start to seek community like we had in our own countries, (His parents  he was referring to )  And here there is no sense of community
because the only thing which matter here is ,'MONEY.' AND HE SAID HE HAS ALL THE INTENTIONS OF MAKING A HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY."
He told me that I was seeking the wrong things, like great ever lasting friendship with people, conversations, trust, a sense of belonging, a sense of achievement, according to him these were not bad things to want but they are not available here.  Whats available here is money and if you want it you can make a hell of a lot of money.  Look at the businesses run by Immigrants.  Look at all the Italian restaurants…. Pasta with tomato sauce $ 18
Past with clams: $ 25
Pasta with fungi :$ 28
Pasta with shrimp: $ 32
And how many millions come for espresso and cappuccino ?

Very few people here are just sitting with friends having heart to heart conversations….
"YOu are looking for the wrong things here." he said.  "Look for money, look for money, look for money."  He said, "And you will make money and your purpose of being here will be clear as clear can ever be."  And then he left.

I thought to myself, perhaps my anxiety is all about the lack of money but it comes out in my dreams of some other ominous shapes such as running around getting no where, running around and around towards death………….but death is not real death, its the lack of money in this rich, rich, rich country.
But what do I need money for?
I can't think of a single thing that I would need enormous money for.
Shopping?
I hate shopping now
Eating in fancy restaurants ?
I am so fat now and I have eaten enough in so called fancy places
the same generic food every where….
'Salmon, Is it wild ?"  I ask the waitress
" Let me ask the manager"  she says
"Its farm fish."  She says
She didn't have to run to the manager, she knows its not wild, its farm but it costs $38
I can go to Citerela, the fancy fish store and buy wild fish and pay less and cook it myself, a little garlic, lemon, olive oil and its ready.  Why do I have to eat farm fish in all the expansive places and pay as if I am paying through my nose which I am actually doing by just sitting there and feeling important.
Giving my money away and feeling important?
What kind of success is that.
The owner of the restaurant is the real Important person.
Buying another designer bag?
Really? Giving money to the designer who gave 5 cent an hour to some pathetic Chinese worker in China to slave away for the designer so the designer can put his or her name on the bag?
Forget it…..
To go dutch with a girl friend who is always on the cell phone?
To hell with it.
To spend $ 150 to see a lousy show on Broadway/
People paid $2500 to see Cate Blanchett….
Please……
And I met Tennessee Williams
Why do I need money?
No,  I don't need money
So what is the anxiety I go through in my dreams?
It must not be about money, it must be about something else
And I am trying to find what that something else is?

This dream of carrying so much luggage of my own as well as of my sister's is the clearest possible dream in such a long time.  The meaning of this recent dream is that I have been and still carrying a burden of love of family on my shoulders and have some incredible guilt of leaving them behind and still constantly needing them for something, for talking perhaps, for complaining about the cold weather and snow perhaps or to gossip about others perhaps, or for laughter perhaps or to talk about our childhood perhaps…..I don't know because there is no certainty in my thought, just too many perhaps…..perhaps….perhaps….

So in my dream I am over loaded with luggage and at some point I put it down near a stair case and Move away front here for a while, I don't remember if I went to get some coffee or went to the restroom but when I come back the luggage is all gone.  I am devastated, I look here and there every where
But its all gone….I begin to cry, cry out loud saying repeatedly, "Oh! my suitcase had my passport, oh! my passport, it had all my money, Oh! my money, I can't go anywhere without my passport, without money,I sob, I cry, I sob, oH1 my sister's beautiful hand made blanket is also gone with her luggage.  I have lost everything but if I can get my passport back and my money back at least I would be ok."
But the luggage is no where in sight……….DESPERATION AND HELPLESSNESS IS IMMENSE
People keep passing me by.  No one notices that I am sobbing.  No one stops to say, "Is there anything wrong?  Can I help."  No, no one.  No one stops.  They have wires in their ears and eyes on the phone and their legs take them forward in quick strides and they don't worry about if they crush someone's shoulder or poke some one's eye out or crush all the 27 little bones in some one's foot.
Perhaps its an airport or a railway station.  Perhaps I was going somewhere since I had so much luggage with me………………..
But now I can't….Now I can't go any where because I don't have my passport on me………
I must be traveling to a foreign country since I needed a passport.  I must be planning to go to a foreign country…..But why?  The word, " FOREIGN"  SEEMS SO "FOREIGN" TO ME RIGHT NOW.
WHY MUST ANY ONE GO TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY AND NEVER COME BACK?