Walking to Pittsburgh
What brought that on, that dream? A dream analyst can connect it either to my worries or to something I did or guiltily left undone yesterday. In the dream I looked the age I feel inside me, which is about forty to forty-three, though my age didn’t seem to be a factor. At a college of some sort, it must have been for a seminar, and whatever I was there for was over, had ended. As I dressed to leave, my wallet, the plain thin brown one, was on the dressing table in front of me. Another student, whom I didn’t know but he was older college student age, early twenties not a teen, stood there by me, also dressing. He laid a handful of clothes down on the table, and when he picked them up I felt that my wallet was missing, checked and sure enough, it was. I turned and confronted him just as he was looking through my wallet, snatched it back from him and threatened him that if it happened again I’d call the police. He left the room and didn’t reappear in the dream.
I finished dressing in my blue suit, white shirt and tie, shiny black shoes, and headed out the door for Pittsburgh, walking, where I had an appointment for an interview at four o’clock in the afternoon. What the interview was about wasn’t a factor, or whether I was to be interviewed or was to conduct the interview, though in the dream it did occur to me to wonder. I didn’t have a car, but that wasn’t an issue, and as I sludged through Georgia-like clay mud toward the Pennsylvania Turnpike, it started to drizzle. My head and suit were getting wet, and my shoes caked with mud and mud getting on my pants cuffs, but I trudged on. It occurred to me that since my appointment was a hundred miles away, and I only had eight hours to walk there, I should have checked to see if there was a bus; but it was too late now, and besides, the wallet was empty, though of course I could have used a credit card. It also occurred to me that I could have gotten a ride with the guy who picked up my wallet, but he was already gone. But again, it was too late, and I was already on the road and on the way, and wasn’t about to waste time going back into Harrisburg to ask about a bus.
Cellphone wasn’t a factor, maybe because there was no such thing. Neither was any person I know or then knew in the dream. It did register that eight hours wasn’t much time to walk the hundred miles from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, and that I’d have to clean my shoes and get the mud off my pants cuffs, and dry my head before my appointment. I was conscious that my hair was thick and jet black, as it was in those years; maybe that was a factor, but I don’t think so.
I was not upset or anxious, it wasn’t my usual anxiety dream, like when I’m visiting a church as suppy priest and the congregation is singing the openng hymn and I can’t find either my vestments or the front door of the church, and a few minutes later I can hear them singing the sermon hymn and I still haven't found my vestments, and can’t find the back door to get to the pulpit. I hadn’t been recalled into the Navy and just reported aboard the aircraft carrier and rushing around because the admiral had ordered me to his cabin and I couldn’t find my hat, and my uniform had two different ranks on it and I didn’t know whether I’d been recalled as a commander or lieutenant commander, or as a line officer or chaplain, and I had on a khaki shirt with a service dress blue coat, and where was that blasted hat ... not one of those dreams. Neither was it one of those dreams about old times and people who were important in my life when the world was young, younger and so was I.
What did I do yesterday, what was my mind on that might have stirred this nonsensical dream? We came in from the beach early to work on and in the house. I installed a closet door. My mother was a scary person who visualized someone hiding in that particular closet, so years ago I had to take the closet door down and leave the closet open. Down and stored in a tool shed, the door warped and ruined, so I adapted a different door, which took me all morning and into after lunch. Ordered a new hot water heater for Malinda’s house, to be installed Tuesday morning; don’t understand it, because the old water heater is still bright and shiny, but that’s what the insurance company said, and whatever they say, that’s what I do. Having half a gallon of the light gray paint left from painting the front steps, I painted the back porch steps as far as the paint lasted. I like the paint, gritty against slipping or skidding, it goes on very thick, but gave out before I finished, so now I have to go to Lowe’s and buy more.
While I was outside painting, Hercules called to tell me when his van would pick up a bunch of stuff to deliver to Tass in Tallahassee. Lots of fun noise from next door, where a son is getting married Saturday, this afternoon, and we are going to help enjoy. It being Halloween, we didn’t want to leave the house overnight, so slept here for the first time in weeks instead of driving back out to the Twilight Zone of sheer bliss. Zonked out by seven-thirty, I was up at midnight, then again at two a.m. to stay up. Cold and windy this morning, but if the weather is dry and the temperature not below whatever the paint can specifies, I will be able to finish painting the back steps.
Charlie said “keep on tweaking” so that’s what we’re doing. Keep on tweaking, keep on trucking, keep on painting, life is good, even walking to Pittsburgh. Nobody came trick or treating, so I have all this chocolate candy to eat, yeehah. And let all the people say,
Amen.
T+ in +Time
Bizarre in my dream, I knew it was two hundred miles from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, but knowing that was too far to walk in the day, I let it be only one hundred.