Thursday, April 14, 2011

Dream 11 April 2011

My dreams this morning seemed fractured after a fitful night’s sleep.  I remember sitting in a church and the priest in the pulpit decked out in magisterial robes, gold braid and white satin spoke only in Italian.  When the organ blared out the first notes of music it became clear that not only would he speak to us in Italian he would also sing, and sing he did.

Solo in a vibrant tenor’s voice that in places bordered on soprano.  His voice was high and distinctive.  He could sing and he knew it.  Only when he sang did he manage to smile.

After the service was over the tall and thin Italian priest morphed into a woman, an older woman with dyed black hair and pale skin.  Her cheeks were hollowed out with wrinkles and in her ears she wore a stunning pair of earrings, hooped gold with a single pearl fixed in the centre of each hoop.

She stood in the churchyard with one of her grown children and spoke to me about how difficult it had been for her since her husband had died when she was only 72.  Life had not been the same since.  She looked as though she had led a good life with plenty of money and beautiful things around to amuse her and yet she seemed unhappy.

She was like a character from the movies.


Dream 14 April 2011

I am drawn to pick up a shoe I have found under an outside chair in the garden.  It belongs to a woman I know only through blogging.  I have never seen her before but I recognise her by her blog name.  She is tall, thin and glamorous, with an American accent.
‘I like your shoe,’ I say to her, hopeful that she will let me try it on.
‘You can buy it if you like,’ the woman says.  ‘It doesn’t fit me.  It's too tight around my ankles’.

I pick up the shoe and notice a tag with a $5.00 sign attached to the buckle.  The shoe is made of some strange plastic looking leather and is red, bright red, my favourite colour and I am delighted when it fits.  I call it a shoe but it more like a sandal, though the straps are thick and the toes are covered.
‘I’ll buy it’, I sty, ‘but where’s its partner.’

We search the garden for the other shoe.  My blogging friend is nonchalant.  What’s five dollars or a lost shoe to her, a shoe that does not fit anyway, but I am determined to find it.  The  first shoe fits so well.  It is exactly what I have been looking for.

On the veranda atop a wide edged pot plant I see a glimmer of red between the roots of the pot plant.  I pull at it to discover the shoe, which has somehow become overgrown with the roots of this plant such that is entirely covered.  I will have to hack it out of the pot and its bracken prison.

I grab hold of a long knife from the kitchen and a large serving fork, not that either will be any good for the job but I can see no other tools.  Besides I decide I will ask my husband to help me and he will know what to do.

I swing the knife and fork over my head in a dramatic gesture, as if I am preparing to slice someone or something up, aware that I must be careful.  I am like a child with a big stick.  Children swing sticks around their heads with little concern for the consequences, until someone gets hurt.

I wake up before any harm happens, still longing for my shoe.

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