Thursday, May 10, 2012

Dream: Come See Me

My mother's call left me worried. "Come see me," she'd pleaded. "I miss you." I scribbled down the new address and checked the map. She was fourteen hours away.

Funny, how we do that- measure trips in hours instead of distance, as if we plan to drive straight through, dismissing the sights. 

That's how my father always did it. The shortest distance between two points, and all that nonsense. He was pissed with me when I was twelve years old. I'd pointed out to him that, factoring in the curvature of the earth and the fact that road builders rarely construct straight paths between cities, the shortest distance between two points might actually be an arc. 

He told me to shutthehellup and let him do the driving. 

Maybe that's why my mother divorced him. 

Or maybe not. She told me once that she was tired of playing Caroline to his Charles. I was astonished that she could ever say such a thing, but it rang true. My father had always pictured himself building a cabin, praising God and living off the land. 

My mom, on the other hand, was more of a Hot Lips Houlihand. I never saw her any other way.

She's been calling out to  me for several nights in a row. Sometimes she's still with my father. Sometimes it's my Poppy or James. Sometimes it's a new man altogether. Never mind that she passed away four and a half years ago. That issue never seems to come up when I see her in my dreams. 

I wonder what she's up to that she should need to call out to me so often. It doesn't matter. I can never reach her. There's always a flood or a fire or maybe the roads wear away into impassable rivers of mud and sludge. I get bogged down in the muck. No matter what vehicle I take, car, boat, bicycle, Radio Flyer, I can't seem to remember until I wake up that I know how to fly...

23 comments:

  1. That was heart-wrenching, but at least I'm not the only one who has dreams like that.

    Dug the M*A*S*H reference by the way...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I watched entirely too much TV as a child, but I'll still watch M*A*S*H if I happen to catch it for no other reason than it reminds me of my mom.

      Delete
  2. Love how dreams take a holiday from logic at times...i have similar dreams...
    i really liked this ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aaaagghhh! I accidentally deleted your comment! And now my phone won't let me retrieve it! (calm down, Nessa. Fix it when you get home...)
      Grumble grumble...

      Delete
    2. oh. Well, apparently, you can't retrieve comments once they've been deleted. I really do appreciate your sweet comment about you're grandmother.

      Delete
  4. Ah yes, the dreams, the dreams. I forget how far (vast) it is for you to travel there. We drove from here to Switzerland last year and that only took 13 hours!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It fourteen hours from where I am, not quite at the top of Texas, to the very bottom of Texas. I won't even talk about Alaska...

      Delete
  5. I never remember my dreams when I wake up. Maybe they're not very interesting

    Cold As Heaven

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wish I could forget most of mine.

      Delete
    2. Are they so bad?

      You're right about the curvature of the earth (did you study math?), and basically you can't avoid following it when driving, on the larger scale, if we neglect the topography, local detail such as the Rockies and stuff like that >:)

      Delete
    3. Most of my dreams are downright murderous. And no, I didn't study math, but I was good at just about everything in school, whether or not it held my interest.

      Delete
  6. Why do we do that? Measure it in time? Why have I never thought of that?

    And an arc.... brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it's probably because we just can't wait to get there...

      Delete
  7. I loved this post, I still dream about my dad though I can never hear his voice, or certainly remember it when I wake. It's really weird. I can relate to how you annoyed your dad as well though you did it much more brilliantly then I ever could have. I also loved the M*A*S*H reference just as Robbie has mentioned. Wonderful writing, wonderful post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank You. When I was twelve, I thought it was my job to annoy people. Especially grown-ups.

      Delete
  8. Oh Nessa- This is so beautiful. Heartbreaking, in a way, but hopeful and inspiring. I think this is one of your best, and probably my favorite of yours, thus far. Really touched me--speaks to those emotions we often try to hush.

    Hot Lips Houlihan. Why do I have a feeling you're more like your mother? ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, Jayne. I'm more like my mother than I'd like to admit. Sometimes I think I'm more like my father than I'd like to admit, but the last two times I saw him, he made it a point to tell me, "You're just like your mother."

      Delete
  9. Wow, I have dreams like these of my deceased mother and sister every now and again. They are definitely crazy and sometimes, though, a bit too real.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes it's nice to see my mom in my dreams. Most times, it's just a reminder that she's not going to be here when I wake up.

      Delete