What Dreams May Come
I love my memory key. Love it love it love it.
That’s what I call it, anyway. My memory key. I think that’s what it was called in the Dell catalogue, too, but, of course, I don’t remember.
It’s small, though, and it slips into a USB port and stores 64 MB of files and pictures and music, whatever I want. I don’t even have a floppy drive, that’s how much I love my memory key.
I can’t wait to share files now, go over to a friend’s house and nonchalantly pull my key out of my pocket and say, “Here are some pictures of the kids” and watch for signs of awe and amazement. Love it love it love it.
I used to be frightened of losing data, and now I’m secure.
I used to lose a lot of data, by the way.
I’d lose a whole night’s worth sometimes, an evening spent at the computer downstairs, wandering through the Web, reading articles and thinking of things to write about, making notes, humming to myself, drinking vodka and Diet Rite. I got really good at that. Toward the end, I could drink almost a fifth in a few hours.
And then I’d get up, yawn, tell my wife I was tired and was going to bed, and I’d forget everything.
I wrote some very strange emails in my time, let me tell you. And there were phone conversations and maybe promises made or details worked out, all of them whoosh into the ether. Reboot.
Where did they go? I wonder. They must be here somewhere. They are Hidden Files now, protected by my operating system from prying eyes. And I don’t really care; I don’t want to know what’s in them. It could be embarrassing, and God knows I remember enough of that.
I think all of my lost memories are waiting backstage, tapping their toes and sneaking a cigarette in the alley, just biding their time until they can make an entrance in my dreams. I read somewhere that someone who cares about such things suspects dreams are the residue of our filing system, the byproduct of judicious organization. Everything has a place, and in the process they wander and create little dramas, little one-acts that confuse and amuse and sometimes scare the shit out of us.
Pardon my language.
I knew a lady who frowned on such a pedestrian, mechanical, functional explanation of dreams. She was a psychotherapist and she loved dreams. Loved them loved them loved them. Especially my dreams (I think).
I went to see her because I had issues, of course. Issues. Midlife things, some garden variety depression, some resentment, some anger, some fear. I had an Adjustment Disorder, which is what they call it when it’s not really flamboyant. Anybody can have an Adjustment Disorder. You probably do and you don’t even know it, that’s how boring it can be.
I miss her. I haven’t seen her in a while, haven’t really felt the need or else haven’t felt the co-pay was justified, but I miss her. She is a lovely woman, 10 years older than I, kind and smart and a good audience for me. Sometimes we’d be discussing serious things and then I’d make her laugh so hard her face would get red and no sound would come out of her mouth, that hard. It was very therapeutic.
And I’d tell her my dreams, particularly my recurrent ones, and she’d tussle with them, diagram them, take them apart and talk about them. The One About The Overflowing Toilets. The One About The High School Graduation.
And The One About The Pool. I used to dream there was a pool in our backyard. I dreamed this a lot. It was back in the corner, where only the dog goes, hidden by trees and lack of interest. But it was a real pool, a built-in pool with a diving board and a pump and filter, and it was a mess.
There were tree branches and algae and newspapers floating on the surface. It was frustrating, thinking of the work I had to do. We had pools when I was growing up in Arizona, but my dad always took care of the details and I just swam. So I didn’t know where to begin, but mostly I kicked myself because all this time, all these years, all the time my kids were growing up, we could have been using this nice pool and I forgot about it. I just forgot.
She loved this dream.
She told me lots of things. She told me I needed to figure out why I wanted to numb things with alcohol. She told me I needed to talk with my wife more. She told me I had to write, that if I didn’t I’d eventually just burn up, disintegrate, implode. I pondered these things.
And one day, I walked into her office and tossed a newspaper on her desk, with the headline “Meet Our New Columnist” on it, and she laughed and said, “You’re done,” and I was, too, for the time being. I never dreamed of the pool again.
The point of that dream, by the way, I eventually decided, was not that I had forgotten something, or procrastinated about something.
It was that I didn’t take care of something. In my opinion. Who knows? Dreams.
I’m better at figuring things out now. I talked to my wife the other day about this. I told her I had an epiphany. I have these all the time. She tries to be nice about this.
I told her that I discovered there was a difference between being honest and being frank. Being frank is saying, “I have a problem.” Being honest is saying, “I need your help.” Maybe it’s just me.
But my data is safe for the time being. I remember last night, as tired as I was. And I remember my dream.
I had a garbage bag filled with wine cartons. You know wine cartons? Boxes of wine. I used to buy these, long ago, typical alcoholic behavior, trying to moderate when moderation is not on the syllabus. They would last me a week, these cartons, as foul as they were. And then a few days. And then a couple of days. And so on.
But they took up a lot of room, and they were hard to hide.
So, in my dream, I’m trying to hide this sack of wine cartons.
This isn’t an interesting dream. Lots of us have them, reflecting on past behavior. Smokers who quit have smoking dreams all the time. So do drinkers. Others.
But I was in a wooded area, outdoors, alone with my sack. No one was around, but I was in a hurry for some reason. I took them out, one by one, and tried to hide them.
I was putting them behind my father’s grave.
You want to run with that one?
They scare the shit out of me sometimes.
Pardon my language.
11:06:38 AM 
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