I'm a teenager. Our family's going camping on the floor of Yosemite Valley. Our father's taking care of us alone. He's a tall thin black man who rides a motorcycle. A writer, he's never been too practical. Not much money. Rented little rooms and lived lightly... till now.

Till he suddenly has three kids to raise. See, our mom just vanished. He's all the caretaker we have, now. And he hasn't been in our lives much, he's new at it; they were divorced for years before she suddenly abandoned us.

He's clearly overwhelmed. We have to be pretty self-sufficient. He barely has resources to find food and shelter for us. We use our sleeping bags; our bedrooms are little areas in the tent. He has just just a few photos and envelopes with money he's allocated for aspects of this camping-trip--his first attempt to budget and plan, maybe in his life!

We go into Yosemite General Store, and Dad returns a bad car part or tool he just bought here. It failed the first time he used it. He argues with a cute Asian girl at the counter who sold it to him.

She casually tosses a large bolt away that she found by our car--I think it's the drain plug for the entire oil system and she's (I hope unintentionally) sabotaged his car repairs AGAIN...

Dad plans to lead us across the country, car-camping the whole way to save money... then head back west and north to Seattle.

Great in theory. But he'll have to learn to stay alert and organized, to keep things running!

NOTES

• Parents, Yosemite = my parents really did go visit Yosemite Valley last weekend.
• Mom disappears = for years I've tried to throw out my mom's harsh rules. Now they're gone at last? Yay! Except... even bad values leave a hole when they go.
• Dad's a black writer = I was reading Samuel Delany today.
• Writer who lives light & rides a motorcycle = also read "I See By my Outfit" by Peter Beagle, about his sixties motorbike odyssey across America. So my best guess is, my dad in the dream was a fusion of Delany and Beagle, both writers I admire.
• So... this dad means my creative side, who lived simply and focuses on getting the art done, like a good Dharma Bum... while my mom's strict habits ran my life! I griped, but also RELIED on those rigid habits for structure. Now I've tossed out her rules--I'm free! Great, right? Well, but without them, I'm absent-minded--and must relearn self-care.

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