muddy water

i had a very strange dream last night.

i’m on my way to an appointment with my therapist (scheduled for today, by the way) and it’s raining buckets – the kind of torrential downpour that always gives me a naughty thrill of excitement, wondering what’s going to flood next. the kind of deluge that makes the creek in our backyard, usually a mild inch or two of flowing water, threaten to overflow its five-foot banks. the kind of storm that i want to listen to from the inside of a yurt.

so i am, for some reason, walking down williams street to the counseling center, apprehensive that the street i have to cross is flooded – looks like about five inches of water. well, ok, i’m gonna get wet. but i have to go to this appointment, no question about it. into the flood i wade.

i realize immediately that i’m screwed – the flood level is more like five feet, and the street has turned into a river, its current flowing strongly away from where i need to go. i have to swim through it, but i can’t seem to get enough strength to fight the current. the water is brown, muddy, cold, and intrusive – trying its best to get into my mouth and lungs. violent.

cut to me opening the door of the counseling center, dripping mud and water all over the carpet.

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while working with a group in new york city, i learned that water is a symbol of the emotional world. oceans, rivers, lakes, waterfalls – all these can sometimes point to your emotional state. in this case i think it’s spot-on. i’ve been so irritated and cranky and generally pissed off over the last few days that i’m really looking forward to a session with brent where i can just unload all this nastiness i’m holding back. and there’s a part of me that sees this as a Very Scary Thing - what happens when you open the floodgates?

i don’t feel like i can really be myself at home, and neither does skipper – we’ve both acknowledged that much, at least. picking on each other and maintaining a sense of humor is difficult, to say the least. we can’t seem to manage it without pissing each other off. there’s a fair amount of resentment on both our sides here.

and you know how some people just rub you the wrong way? it’s not something you can really put a finger on, it’s just a constant awareness of emotional discomfort – i don’t know what the hell it is. i’d love to be able to figure it out and let it go – but maybe i have to let it go without figuring it out.

i tried some yoga last night before bed. couldn’t really get comfortable – i felt self-conscious, wondering if skipper or brian would come out and sniff at my silly hippie new-age practices. tried the corpse pose and felt utterly exposed. scared. not safe. another wave of resentment – if i can’t feel safe at home, where can i feel safe? the conference room of our plant, where rb and i lock ourselves in several times a week to practice? my car? my bedroom (which desperately needs an airing out after a couple weeks of laundry backlog)?

i daydream about having a tiny yurt in my back yard. some place circular, enclosed, safe, quiet. a place i could hang prayer flags without feeling as if i were intruding on someone else’s belief system. a place i could drape silk on the walls and burn incense. a place where i could be silent, and quiet, and not worry about my silence giving offense to those with whom i live. a place where i could feel free, and me, and safe.

and there's nothing wrong with dreaming.