enhabiten

I have this old white plastic laundry basket that I keep trying to get rid of but it always finds it's way back to me.  Sometime last week I had a dream that I could fly in that laundry basket.

There were other parts to the dream featuring people and places from my past.  These people and places come with complicated emotions but they make up who I am and even if I think of them infrequently in my waking hours my sleeping mind knows better.

In the dream I had to plan a party in a restaurant I worked at as a teenager.  People from that time period were in the dream as well as people who have come in and out of my life since.

There are significant details of the dream I forget now but I remember that I wanted something from these people and they wanted something from me.  What we wanted was hard to define.  A place in each other's memories, a feeling of understanding, a validation of meaning.

In between the party planning I was alone on this stretch of road in the town I grew up in.  It was dark and quiet.  It's a road without much redemption; sand pits and a few houses with peeling paint.  But I was in this white plastic laundry basket.

I know.  There is an element of comedy and absurdity here.

But see, I could make this basket leave the ground.  I could hover over the road about 20 feet or so and then I could fly.  It took effort.  I recall that I could only do this for so long and then I needed to touch down, gather my energy, and try again.  I was a little nervous that I might crash or hit the power lines.  But I didn't.

I was alone on this road in the dark and the white plastic kind of shone like a beacon and I could fly.  It was hard and it was silly and I was riding a white plastic laundry basket for God's sake.  But it was worth it because I could fly.