Anger Defeats Its Attackers

Work has been insanely busy for me for the past few weeks and my swollen right hand is finally starting to recover, so I figured writing a blog would speed up my recovery. Afterall, creativity prevents me from going completely insane. It is like my friends Valerian root, chamomile, and lavendar. Lets hear it for calming herbs!

My dreams lately have reminded me of that awful feeling of stalling over and over again in a stick-shift on a steep hill. I think my dreams are going to go somewhere, but then they keep getting interupted by my neurotic bowls. Consequently, each dream is like a fragment of itself.

The most apparent and well-recollected fragment was me trapped in a small space being threatened by large flying cockroaches. Each time the insects tried to attack me they would come at me with unbelievable speed. Once they entered the space within a foot of my face they would crack in half and fall to the ground. I stood dumbfounded as their angry three inch bodies met their fates.

Anger defeats it's attackers.

When people and animals allow rage to fuel their motives they often end up defeating themselves, not always, but often. I had calmly stood my ground in that very short dream and survived my enemies without doing anything. As people continue to attack me with hurtful words and dirty looks I look deep within myself for calm and comfort and remind myself that their words will one day crack in half and cease to exist.

Soft Touch

I have a problem with people touching my stuff without my consent, especially my bed. When I was a little girl I would make my bed with tender loving care plumping up my down pillows and comforter, so that in the evening I felt like I was falling into a cloud. This was my ritual. This was my serenity. I have talked about this before. I have very high cortisol levels and I have been like this since I can remember: sensitive, excitable and easily enraged over petty details. When I feel uncomfortable I want to control my environment. I want to control the heated water coming out of the faucet and into my bath, the plumpness of my pillows, the food that passes my lips, the sounds I hear, and the cleanliness around me. I have OCD. I am almost Howie Mandel.

The dream I had last night brought me face to face with this worry and surmounting rage. My landlord's husband took it upon himself to change my down bedding out for an ugly acryllic comforter. He was trying to control the controlling. I boiled and spilled out onto the stove and dripped down to the kitchen floor. In minutes I found myself banging furiously on his son's door across the way awakening their baby that screamed for milk like it was being murdered. When the son came to the door he had a huge smile on his face. I was initially perplexed by his jovial demeanor, but quickly realized a tower of cardboard boxes teetering behind him. He waved to the boxes and announced that his family was finally moving into a brand new home. He then told me that if I needed to discuss anything that he was at that very moment about to drive up to his new home and that I could meet him there as his family unpacked. I thought this request was odd, but my curiosity about the place trumped my apprehension. I arrived there before anyone else and walked through the open front door, through the foyer, the expansive living room, and into the backyard. The view was astonishingly perfect and unusual. Red rock cliffs jutted up topped with green pastures anointed with huge beautiful brand new homes. The suburb was so new and perfect that it looked like it sprung up all of a sudden one day for no other reason than to congratulate new mommies and daddies. As I stood in awe at their new life I quickly forgot why I was there. A small kick in my gut and heart made me soon realize that I wanted what they had. I wanted a family of my own, a gorgeous home and a view that made me forget why I was angry in the first place. For a few moments I pretended and a nice breeze curled into my heart and I felt ecstatic. Quickly this feeling faded when I realized that my life was no where near this elevated status. In fact, I was there because they demoted my down-status to acryllic. Anger poored back into me like hot water. Splashes of luke warm water doused my eyes and ears. I heard a click and spun around. The son stood there still grinning.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

"Your dad took my down comforter and I want it back!"

"Oh, um, sure."

I walked back into the house and found my down comforter laying limply in a box. I picked it up and walked out the door and down the steep street passing all the the brand new gas stations and stores and mommies and babies and daddies and I clutched my soft comforter tighter and fought back the tears that were sure to follow.

Communicating Courage

My dreams for the past few weeks have been vivid and thought-provoking as usual, but I have had a difficult time finding time to write about them because I have been training an intern fresh out of high school and scrambling to get my own work done before taking Friday the 13th off to spend with Anthony.

Last friday, Anthony I went to the Hummingbird Inn in Ojai and enjoyed a leisurely swim and a Mexican dinner replete with Agave wine. It was very relaxing and an excellent bonding experience. On Saturday we drove to a couple of our favorite wineries for wine tasting and picnicking. We sat in the grass and rejoiced in the savory delights of Trader Joe's mustard, goat cheese, poppy seed crackers, fresh ripe peaches, apricots, grapes, Greek salad, gourmet peanut butter cups, and salami sandwiches. Yum. We also spent the remainder of the weekend lounging about watching "Minority Report", "The Zodiac", and "The Beach". To top off the weekend we spent Sunday night celebrating Susan's and Avi's one year wedding anniversary with wine and a replica of the top tier of their wedding cake.

Monday I went back to work to face a growing list of tickets to complete and almost two hours of the phone ringing off of the hook because we had a companywide Outlook and Intranet outage. I just about lost my mind. Thankfully, after I left work, the day lifted with a fun outing with my roommate. We perused funky clothes, interesting books and ate delicious sushi.

Last night I went to bed exhausted, but satisfied. These feelings surely led me into a very strange dream that said a great deal about facing my fears with courage and decreased worry. In one frame my older brother found a spider the size of my forearm chilling by the head of my bed. It was black and furry. It's size meant nothing of its character. It was as docile as an old feline. Adrian held the arachnid in his hand belly-up and it looked up at us with several serene glossy eyes. My brother, my cousin Samantha and I stood around and chatted about our find like we were talking about an episode of The Cosby Show. "Way back when..."

I walked out of the room and bumped into a crying woman. As she lifted her head I instantly recognized her as Sarah Silverman. She immediately began to unleash stories of people close her passing away. I gave her a hug and she thanked me.

I left her and walked through a crowded room with familiar faces and heard their thoughts. I felt like the sun surrounded by sunbathers. They all stood at a safe distance as I elevated their spirits with my mere presence. I radiated warmth and power because I was happy and smiling. I was thinking about these fears I had just faced and I was gleeful that they were as docile as kittens.

If I spell this out for you maybe you will understand what I mean. A fear can be obvious like arachniphobia, but the real fears that one faces can be more subtle like being in the same place with people you know and communicating courage without a word.

Remodeling

Somewhere around 1985 my parents decided to remodel the house. Ah, the sound of drills and saws in the morning...I remember the dust on everything, the "Pink Panther" fiberglass insulation, how the nails caused little dents in the drywall, the aroma of fresh paint, the dirty scruffy carpenters, the smell of Camel cigarettes, and the eventual showing of vacant new rooms to fill with more crap. All this mayhem helped me come to the conclusion that rooms are giant boxes to keep your junk and the people you love in. The reason I bring this up is because last night I dreamt that my parents were once again remodeling the house. This happens to be a reoccurring dream of mine and it usually involves more bathrooms and secret rooms that already existed, but I didn't know about them. I often find myself in these dreams stunned that a door I chose never to open in my youth actually led to another bathroom! Wuhaaaaat? This usually results in me being pissed at myself because in real life, as a child, I ALWAYS fantasized about having two huge rooms past my closet doors. One room was a luxurious bathroom that no one else could use and the other was a room full of colorful scented pillows that I had to take a swirly slide to get to.

The dream last night was filled with rushed conversations with my mom, dad, brother and sister about all the reconstruction of the house. After decades of me hounding them to turn their 1/2 bath into a full bath, they finally conceded in a big way. In fact, the bathroom was so gigantic that during the renovation hippy artisans were selling their wares in my parent's new camode. My sister and I perused their carved boxes, hemp T-shirts, beaded belts, necklaces and scented lotions with longing and both wondered if we would get discounts because they were working out of our parent's house.

My brother was still living at the house and they had expanded his room into what looked like a miny apartment. He had a livingroom that was fenced in and his very own bathroom with a bathtub fitted with jets. Man, was I jealous! He thanked them by keeping it a pigsty and my mom cheerily cleaned up his mess. What the...?!

I got rather annoyed with all this decadence that I didn't get to reap the benefits from. My arms were crossed and I gritted my teeth to fight back the complaints that were sure to come like "Why didn't you do this when I still LIVED here? I don't even have my own bathroom at my apartment that I pay rent for! Grrrrrr."

A spoiled brat indeed, but come on... You must have felt something similar to this in your life. You know that feeling that someone else is getting what you want? Envy is an ugly feeling. Envy should be remodelled into something else: something like a bathroom with a bathtub with jets.

Red Curtains

My most intricate dreams I rarely write about. The details haunt me for weeks and sometimes months at a time because those complicated stories are difficult to start writing about. Last night, I had one.

The war theme continues and wears me down... My boyfriend Anthony and I are in Iraq in a town where the homes and shops are carved into hard boring dirt. Doors and windows are wide open and the smell of heavily spiced meats and rice cooking permeates the air. People speak in foreign tongues, whilst Anthony and I stand together holding hands locked together in otherness. I am wearing shorts and a tank top because is it hot. The government hates women like me. They want me to cover up and pretend I can't read. They don't want me to read the signs of the times. They want me to be easy to catch. Again, I am hunted. The difference is I am not the only one - Anthony is a sitting duck, too.

We run together. We hide behind homes on jagged rocks and map out every escape. We bicker, we hug, we kiss and we cry, but mostly we run. Irritation starts to burn inside me because I start to remember what we promised to one another before the chase began, before I could hear bullets pummeling aluminum siding with my name on them and before my right to be a strong independent woman came into question.

Anthony had proposed to me. He had gotten down on one knee and slid a ring on my finger. He had said that cliched remark, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you". No truer words could have been said to explain our present predicament. We were running for our lives. We were thristy and hungry and not knowing who, outside each other, we could trust.

We eventually found ourselves in an extravagant bridle shop. The floors rolled like the ocean and white curtains hung like streamers and heavily make-uped women floated over to me like they had been waiting just for me. They were. My dress was ready. The ladies softly pushed me into a room ringing with flourescent lights. I tried to leave knowing that the longer I stayed the greater the chance that the military would find me and cut me in half. Anthony wrung his hands and his eyebrows became worry signs.

My irritation grew into rage over this perfectly timed injustice. My future was a marriage to war, to shackles and to blood-letting. I was too angry to cry tears of sadness. My desire to get married and live a peaceful life with the man that I love was destroyed by old beliefs.

The inferno burned inside me until the last thing I saw was red splattered all over the curtains.

Dried Out

It is July 3, 2007. It is my brother's 32nd birthday. I just ate my weight in food. Call it a "Potluck", if you will, or a "Maelstrom of Every Ethnic Food That You Might Think Of"... Yes, that is what it was. As I plunge into the depths of beyond full, the kind of gluttony that puts pressure on my bones and I wonder if I might crack in half, I am thinking back to last night when I slept in a nest of pillows above my comforter as my air-conditioner hummed and my fan howled. I had a nightmare that my fictional family split in two. They each formed their own mafia family that hated the other with a venom so strong it seemed that they had all turned into cobras. I was the black sheep because I didn't want to join either band of hatred, so I ran. The farther I ran the closer they got to me and the hungrier and thirstier I became.

The summer heat hovered around my worn out body like flies. I got weaker and weaker and delirium set in. I lost my ability to see clearly. The world looked like soup and my throat went dry. I could hear people calling my name, but I didn't have the slightest idea that they were talking to me. I crawled out of my droopy body and sat on a shelf. I think I was in Target next to the candy bars.

They didn't notice me even though they were hunting me. They talked about kidnapping and eating yogurt and beef jerkey. They wore hats that covered their eyes. They couldn't believe they were standing in Target, so they weren't. They were outside at the bottom of steep cement stairs.

I looked at them trying desperately to focus. Sometimes I was invisible. Sometimes I wasn't.

I was dying. I was dying and there was no one to love me enough to save me and when I regained my will to live it was too late. It was too late because I was going to wake up and this sad state was going to end.