May 31st, 1971
It’s after 1:00 in the afternoon– I just woke up– I’ve really been on a sleep marathon this weekend. I just had a very strange dream:
There is a semi-plotted prelude to this dream which I cannot remember. Somehow though, everything seems to be on my head and my mother (I’m living with her) very resolutely, without telling me where she’s taking me, just takes me to the airport. What a freaky airport– what it is– is a sandbar in a little stream and looks just like half a dozen outside of Springfield. At any rate, she hasn’t spoken to me yet– She just seems to know what she has to do to help me. So she buys a ticket for Boston. I’m suddenly excited. Suddenly she’s all “made up”– super dressed, with her hair done and bright red lipstick on. The tickets, however, have the timetable for the flight stamped on the outside of the envelope it comes in. She is really hassled– but SUPER CALMLY by the fact that she can’t read it– decipher it. She’s not communicating with me at all. I’m being flippantly sophisticated about the whole thing– “Oh, Mom– here let me show you, I know all about this sort of thing.” That attitude is a weapon I unnecessarily use when I’m around Mom and Rene and it is a source of great guilt and anxiety after I’ve used it– because I don’t need that role playing to impress them– and I feel that some of the big city bragging I throw at them really puts them down. I think I need to because my own independent identity when I’m back home is threatened, or at least I think it is.
Anyway, here we are with a lot of people sitting in chairs out on this sandbar in the sun waiting for our flights– Mom and I haven’t said two words– she just seemed really determined.
Suddenly my plane comes and I hurry to get on it (although up to this point I wasn’t aware of getting ready to go anywhere– Mom had the only ticket which was bought. Incidentally, the ticket was for Boston and she paid for it by check– flash– heavy guilt at the sight of the checkbook. The ticket was for $75 but she only wrote the check for $35 and the lady at the ticket stand said that was fine– they would bill her later.) So I can get on my plane, suddenly, and take off– but I’m the only one flying– there is no plane– I am simply going through a simulated flight in a sitting position alone. None of this makes any sense now that I try to describe it, but it was quite natural in the dream.
I remember flashing heavily on the fact, that both Mom and I were going to Boston, but on separate flights– it intrigued me. Then I’m pondering the insanity and danger of planes being worried about “beating” each other to their destinations. I was really upset by the stupidity of anyone even noticing that one plane made it 15 minutes earlier than another.
The plot then thickened wildly and I found myself of a fugitive in some farmers house. (Beautiful flashes on my past with the house). The farmer was pushing some fake mineral water which turned out to be a variation of good old corn liquor. I was naked in his house and had to make a run for it. Expecting to get shot in the back at any minute I made my move. I had stolen an old pair of jockey shorts of the farmer’s I had found in the bedroom, to hide my nakedness and because they were the ultimate in eroticism to me. (I get a hard on just by wearing them). So I made my dash. It seems as if I would be free if I could get out of his yard, up on the road. I had to jump over, wade through (or something) this big drainage ditch running around the farm that was full of the “MINERAL WATER” fake-out– I made the attempt– I was really struggling and scared– it was a terrifying moment– because I didn’t know for sure if I’d make it. While I was struggling away through, I was maintaining a calm conversation with a gorgeous man on the road above me (bearded-many-flashes-Bill?) sitting on a tractor.
Somehow the farmer was my father– I think. But he was kindly.
The ending was just that I made it home (only home was the apartment we used to live in on Grant Street in Springfield) and Peggy and I were comparing notes on what had happened to us– and there were remarkable similarities. Karen was there too, I think.