Friday, March 9, 2012
Observation 108
Wow! These young people are so eloquent speaking about their experiences as LGBT teens, and this made an impact on me as a teacher because we talk about bullying in schools but find it difficult to address one of the heavy weapons in a bully's repertoire, deriding classmates by using slurs against gays or deriding classmates whom they deem gay. Is it because of the topic's controversy? Is it because we feel our hands are tied living in a conservative state? Is it because we work with people who are openly against homosexuality? Is it our own discomfort with the topic? Do any of these questions matter when we are talking about young people committing suicide over the pain they face in going to school with bully's and teachers who are indifferent? Open the can, Virginia! Open the damn can!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Observation 107
By A.E. Bayne
My father spoke to me in a dream last night. We didn’t chat long, as my conscious self woke me with a heavy heart and tears, but he spoke to me directly and pointedly. There is a part of me that wants to believe that the dead might use dreams and the subconscious as otherworldly cell phones; that the dream realm truly is a place where we can walk on another plain of existence and converse with spirits. But then there is the part of me that believes more and more that dead is really dead, and that dreams are simply the mind’s way of processing our daily conflicts and conundrums. It is a curse, seeing things from both perspectives, and the struggle to choose the right answer comes to the fore. The whole of me wants to believe that my father was there with me in the dream.
The dream itself was strange, but nothing I haven’t experienced before. I am a vivid dreamer, and over the past two weeks I have had many seemingly long dreams with convoluted plots. This dream flowed from another dream about a remote island and mysterious deaths, wherein there was a gruesome night scene of an older sister trying to save her younger, obviously drowned, sister in the water beside a dock amidst a mess of logs and twigs. Freaky stuff! Anyway, often in these dreams I am both participant and observer, so in this case I was standing on the dock watching, I was the sister struggling to save the younger one, and I was the dead sister at one point. Then I was drifting toward the house and it was daylight. The house overlooked the sea, hence the dock below, and looked much like a long, flat Florida home. A wraparound porch seemed made for parties, but when you stepped under its eaves a pressing shade fell over everything. Inside, the house was tight and oppressive with small windows and little light. My thought during the dream was that the entire back wall of the house should be blown off and large picture windows should be installed for a view of that expansive sea. I met my mother on the corner of the porch carrying a load of dark laundry out into the yard. We walked toward an old truck, pebbles in the driveway crunching under our feet, and she lamented the darkness in the house, saying she didn’t think we could stay in this place for long. Next to the truck, my father was tinkering with motor parts on a picnic table. My mother walked ahead and placed the laundry on the table, obscuring him from view. At this point, I remember sitting opposite my father, the laundry between us, and the pace of the dream slowing down considerably as I inched my head around the pile and my father’s form became complete, ear, hair, shoulder, eye, nose, eye, face, and there he was. He looked directly into my eyes and said, “You know how your mother can be. She worries about the darkness. You don’t need to worry about it.” Then the dream faded quickly, and I could feel myself pulling out of it, joy and sorrow causing physical sensations that woke me, shaken and crying.
Consider these points on the side of logic. I remember clearly talking to Todd about The Ides of March (movie) yesterday and mentioning that my father died on the Ides, and the movie was itself dark and full of intrigue and secrets, a modern day Caesar tale. Also, I am prone to having dreams about houses when my mind is working overtime. You should see some of these houses! You enter through the front door in Virginia and exit the back door in Russia. So weird! It makes sense with the strange energy burst I experienced yesterday that my mind would have to go house hunting to process everything I did that day. And, of course, March 15th is just around the corner, so memories of sitting with my dad in the hospital, singing to him, holding his hand as he was dying, those memories are toiling and troubling under the surface of my conscious mind right now.
Yet, even in light of these very solid explanations, I cannot shake certain undeniable differences in the way it feels to see my father in dreams. For instance, I think about my father almost every day, but it is a rare occurrence to see and speak with him in a dream. When he speaks the dream state changes, becomes more “real”, and his voice is always clear as if he is speaking directly into my ear. These meetings never last for I usually wake in tears, a mixture of elation and grief playing my emotions.
Could dreams be a portal for the dead to communicate with us? In the daylight hours, after writing about the experience, I don’t think so; but as I wake from the veil between while I’m still shaking the sleep from my eyes, I can almost believe it.
My father spoke to me in a dream last night. We didn’t chat long, as my conscious self woke me with a heavy heart and tears, but he spoke to me directly and pointedly. There is a part of me that wants to believe that the dead might use dreams and the subconscious as otherworldly cell phones; that the dream realm truly is a place where we can walk on another plain of existence and converse with spirits. But then there is the part of me that believes more and more that dead is really dead, and that dreams are simply the mind’s way of processing our daily conflicts and conundrums. It is a curse, seeing things from both perspectives, and the struggle to choose the right answer comes to the fore. The whole of me wants to believe that my father was there with me in the dream.
The dream itself was strange, but nothing I haven’t experienced before. I am a vivid dreamer, and over the past two weeks I have had many seemingly long dreams with convoluted plots. This dream flowed from another dream about a remote island and mysterious deaths, wherein there was a gruesome night scene of an older sister trying to save her younger, obviously drowned, sister in the water beside a dock amidst a mess of logs and twigs. Freaky stuff! Anyway, often in these dreams I am both participant and observer, so in this case I was standing on the dock watching, I was the sister struggling to save the younger one, and I was the dead sister at one point. Then I was drifting toward the house and it was daylight. The house overlooked the sea, hence the dock below, and looked much like a long, flat Florida home. A wraparound porch seemed made for parties, but when you stepped under its eaves a pressing shade fell over everything. Inside, the house was tight and oppressive with small windows and little light. My thought during the dream was that the entire back wall of the house should be blown off and large picture windows should be installed for a view of that expansive sea. I met my mother on the corner of the porch carrying a load of dark laundry out into the yard. We walked toward an old truck, pebbles in the driveway crunching under our feet, and she lamented the darkness in the house, saying she didn’t think we could stay in this place for long. Next to the truck, my father was tinkering with motor parts on a picnic table. My mother walked ahead and placed the laundry on the table, obscuring him from view. At this point, I remember sitting opposite my father, the laundry between us, and the pace of the dream slowing down considerably as I inched my head around the pile and my father’s form became complete, ear, hair, shoulder, eye, nose, eye, face, and there he was. He looked directly into my eyes and said, “You know how your mother can be. She worries about the darkness. You don’t need to worry about it.” Then the dream faded quickly, and I could feel myself pulling out of it, joy and sorrow causing physical sensations that woke me, shaken and crying.
Consider these points on the side of logic. I remember clearly talking to Todd about The Ides of March (movie) yesterday and mentioning that my father died on the Ides, and the movie was itself dark and full of intrigue and secrets, a modern day Caesar tale. Also, I am prone to having dreams about houses when my mind is working overtime. You should see some of these houses! You enter through the front door in Virginia and exit the back door in Russia. So weird! It makes sense with the strange energy burst I experienced yesterday that my mind would have to go house hunting to process everything I did that day. And, of course, March 15th is just around the corner, so memories of sitting with my dad in the hospital, singing to him, holding his hand as he was dying, those memories are toiling and troubling under the surface of my conscious mind right now.
Yet, even in light of these very solid explanations, I cannot shake certain undeniable differences in the way it feels to see my father in dreams. For instance, I think about my father almost every day, but it is a rare occurrence to see and speak with him in a dream. When he speaks the dream state changes, becomes more “real”, and his voice is always clear as if he is speaking directly into my ear. These meetings never last for I usually wake in tears, a mixture of elation and grief playing my emotions.
Could dreams be a portal for the dead to communicate with us? In the daylight hours, after writing about the experience, I don’t think so; but as I wake from the veil between while I’m still shaking the sleep from my eyes, I can almost believe it.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Observation 106
"For sale: Baby shoes, never worn." ~Ernest Hemingway
Which six words describe an event in your life?
Which six words describe an event in your life?
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Observation 105
Noticed a sign at a local fast food joint today as I swung through the drive-through (or should that be drive-thru for fast food?) for a soda. It read:
Smile at the customer and say, "How are you today sir/ma'am."
Say, "That will be $________ today."
Say, "Thank you for your order today." Smile.
And that's exactly what the attendant did, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and she didn't quite look in my direction when she was speaking. In fact, she was laughing with a coworker. I guess there's nothing on the sign to say "and mean it." I wonder what happens if they veer from the script, try to have a conversation, forget to say thank you? Scripted courtesy? And why the script at all? Has it really come to the point when we, as a society, need a written reminder to be polite to one another? Just a thought.
Smile at the customer and say, "How are you today sir/ma'am."
Say, "That will be $________ today."
Say, "Thank you for your order today." Smile.
And that's exactly what the attendant did, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and she didn't quite look in my direction when she was speaking. In fact, she was laughing with a coworker. I guess there's nothing on the sign to say "and mean it." I wonder what happens if they veer from the script, try to have a conversation, forget to say thank you? Scripted courtesy? And why the script at all? Has it really come to the point when we, as a society, need a written reminder to be polite to one another? Just a thought.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Observation 103
Check out this bright little girl! I used her YouTube video in my classroom the other day. She's a pistol!
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Thursday, October 13, 2011
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