Graduation

My daughter graduates from high school today at 2:00 p.m.

My sigh of relief is instantly replaced by impending dread for the next four years. Oh well, that’s life.

Going Back to High School in My Dreams

I had the greatest time when I was in high school. It was just at the end of the hippie era and right before disco, or what otherwise would be known as the First Fall of Western Civilization. (Since then, there have been several more falls, in preparation for the Final Fall, which I hear is going to happen in about three years.)

Last night, I made a dinner that I haven’t made since the kids were little. That is, chili dogs with lots of onions and cheese. I can’t remember when I last had a chili dog. I don’t like hot dogs in general, because once back in the olden days, I worked at a “major venue” as a concession girl. After seeing the recycling of hot dogs from one concert to the next, I had to cut hot dogs from my diet. In fact, I eventually had to quit the job, because the piquant odor of hot dogs caused me to vomit on a regular basis. After I had kids, they would clamor for hot dogs at least once a week, so I would make them occasionally. And, of course, one cannot visit Chicago without having a Chicago hot dog, the best on the planet.

I mention my dinner, because I really believe that what you ate just before sleeping can affect what dreams you will have.

Last night, I went to bed and had a lot of vivid and strange dreams. In one, I went back to my high school. They were having a rally of some sort in the gym. Now, I may have liked high school in real life, but I only attended one rally and one football game in my entire high school career. The reasons for this are many. One, I couldn’t understand organized sports. I guess I still can’t. I was also what one would call “alternative” – I was a hippie. Hippies tended to head for the hills (literally, they were only a few miles away) and communed with nature while smoking natural herbal ingredients. Also, in my “spare” time, I had what one might consider a full time job. Good thing I was a natural brain, and that the school had split sessions.

In my dream, I floated above the cheerleaders and people in the stands. They were there for graduation. I’ve had this dream before. I’ve dreamed that I went back to school years later and graduated with the current class. The faces were all different, but the teachers were pretty much the same ones. After graduating, I went into the parking lot looking for my car, which I couldn’t find. I paced back and forth thinking, “this is where I parked it” with other kids looking at me like I had lost my mind. Then I went back inside the school, and the layout had changed while I was looking for my car. When I went back outside, the parking lot had changed.

I finally woke up in a sweat. It seemed like I was trapped in a revolving door. The worst part was having the current crop of kids laughing at me.

I think I’ll have a piece of fish and some rice pilaf for dinner tonight.

Strange Recurring Dreams

Last night, I had a dream, and it’s one that I’ve had several times over the last thirty-five years or so.

The background: Back when I was in junior high and high school, my best friend was a boy. The background on that was we were thrown together in school when I was asked by our English teacher to tutor him in spelling. I had completely tested out of the high school ACT spelling modules that were so popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and this kid was a terrible speller. That’s how it started. All during high school, we were very close friends, commiserating on each other’s families and various significant others. I taught him how to play guitar. Both of us were interested in Eastern philosophy. Our friendship went beyond that of mere acquaintances. (Not in a physical sense, I somehow couldn’t see him in that way.) I felt as though I’d known him all my life, and in previous lives as well.

After high school, we went our separate ways in separate lives but managed to keep in touch another ten years. After he had graduated from college, he ceased writing to me. This was done in a rather pointed manner. He was in a relationship with a woman, and at that point, she began writing to me. He relayed to her that he felt I had an irrational crush on him (which didn’t make any sense to me, since I was married a second time when he said this), and so didn’t want to speak to me again. Also, he wanted to erase any traces of his life where he grew up. (He’s never returned to our town and will not correspond with others we graduated with.)

I didn’t mind. This woman became a good friend and even later, after she and my best-high-school friend broke up, we still write to each other, even to this day. Neither one of us has any current connection to my high school friend. By Googling his name, I know that he’s doing well as a professor in a southwestern college, but will not attempt to contact him.

What is strange is that every so often, I will have a dream about my friend. This is odd, since I rarely think about him at all, especially as time goes by. Then, out of the blue, I will dream of speaking to him. This is all the dreams consist of – regular conversations with my friend and nothing more.

Last night, we were on a train in the dream. I was sitting with a woman I didn’t know. The train stopped to take on more passengers. He boarded the train from behind us and started walking up the aisle. He got to our row and turned around. Then he bent on one knee and looked at me, and then at the woman. Quite plainly he said to me, “This is my wife and I love her very much.” Then they both got up and walked to another part of the train.

In other dreams, there is no talking. One time, I dreamt he walked up to me, touched me on the shoulder and smiled. The dreams are so vivid, I can even smell the surroundings. They are so real, I wake up and think that these things really happened, until I look around and realize I’m still in bed.

Every time I awaken from dreaming of him, I feel a weird tightness in my stomach for a couple of hours.

Since it’s been thirty-five years of this, I don’t think I will stop dreaming of him.