I dreamed the other night that I was someplace and Jeff and some guys he was with left me where I was (outside some house)– by my choice. I said I would catch up with them later. So they headed back to New York (?) going through parts of rural Connecticut to get to a train station. Almost as soon as they left I realized I had absolutely nothing – no money, no plastic, no friends, no cell phone, no nothing. It was terrible. I either had to beg or try to catch up with Jeff before he got on the train. So I started off through rural Connecticut toward the train station, but I encountered all manner of shit—storms, floods, mean streets, crazy people in cars. I finally arrived at the train station and by God, they hadn’t gotten on the train yet and somehow they’d picked up my father along the way. So all was well.
I woke up really shaken by that dream’s feeling of utter helplessness. I got in the car and drove to the Metro parking lot and as I was getting out of the car, some quarters dropped out of my pocket and fell onto the garage floor. I picked them up and put them in my pocket. As I got to the traffic light at Georgia and Ellsworth, an old man stumbled toward me begging for money to get something to eat. I gave him all the quarters in my pocket with the richest feeling of happiness and wonder.
And I thought that joy must be the sacred bond between the holy mendicant and the almsgiver. Both are touched by the gods in that moment, open to the infinite and fulfilled.
Great post.>>I sometimes think the only reason I write is to put characters (myself) in the most powerless position I can imagine, and then show how they can still win anyway.
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Well, my dreams are often your perfect plot. Truly, I dream a horrific novel a night.
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I wonder if all writer type peeps have nightmares? Maybe it’s all part of that creative thingie.
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I grit my teeth during them, too. My dentist wants to make me a night guard.
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I had a totally different, yet no dissimilar dream a couple of weeks ago — deposited somewhere by Richard — and he went off somewhere else. So interesting that voluntary abandonment by the male, then utter loss of identity until you reintegrate. Which you are CLEARLY doing, or you wouldn’t have had the dream!
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Maybe that relates also to my problems with Isabella (the protagonist of my screenplay Long’s Peak for others of you), who disappears into the male once she surrenders. I need to reintegrate her. That’s the saw I’m taking to her .
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