Dreaming Ourselves

Last night I went to my college reunion where I was afraid I wouldn’t know anyone. I first saw a classmate who quit the wrestling team as a freshman to get involved with the theater and artsy crowd. I remember him telling me about spend thirty minutes alone with an orange in a theater class. I was jealous of him even though I had beat him out for the varsity spot on the wrestling team. I always imagined he was a version of me that escaped the trajectory of struggle and competition for approval in which I lived. I later heard that after graduation he went back and inherited his father’s construction business in Long Island—so I guess he didn’t escape the gravity of his life either. I don’t know if either of those observations—of what he actually did with his life and what it meant to him—is really true.

In the dream, we hugged and were happy to see each other, but had little to say. Then I heard my roommate’s voice but couldn’t find him before being ensnared in another conversation. A little while later, a former girlfriend whose last name is lost in the shroud of memory, appeared and was really interested in me again. I was flattered and confused.

None of these people have I seen or been in contact with for decades and yet still they are a part of me. Memories of who I was include a wide range of dramatis personae. Friends, acquaintances, enemies and strangers all play ongoing roles in the shifting stories myself.

The funny thing is that the roles and the stories are not as fixed as they appear. Every once in a while I get a new insight about motivation (mine or theirs) and am able to replay the scene from a different angle. Like any good director, I’m trying to get to the essence of the story—to understand and elucidate the many layers of meaning. Some scenes are painful reenactments of betrayal, anger and confusion. Some are infused with the golden glow of freedom and intimacy. All these people and stories are parts of a me that is constantly in the self construction and renovation business. My self is endlessly fascinated with itself. Hours of entertainment and hours of trouble. How was I? How am I? How will I be?

At the end of the dream, at the reunion we decided to put all of our stories—all of our regrets and all of our triumphs—into the blender and whizz them up to a fine soup which we would then drink it to nourish our bodies.

Perhaps this is what we are all doing already. Going back over and over what was, what wasn’t and what might have been. Like a cow in the afternoon, contentedly chewing for the second (or third) time the grass it ate in the morning. Ruminating is a way of digesting our experience – chewing over it again and again to break down the hard cell walls of opinion to get to the juicy nourishment of life itself.

Meanwhile, the morning sun is once more illuminating the interior of the trees, my tea has gone cold and the small tomatoes by the railing are slowly turning red.