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Dreamed 1993/9/2 and 9/3 by Chris Wayan
FIRST NIGHT
Halfway through the night's dreams, some friends ask "What've you been doing lately?" I list it all, and it sounds like a lot--too much! The most urgent project was a five-page article or story that I was a little past the deadline on. Still in time to be published, but it made me sweat...
I wake up, and start to write the dream of the five-page deadline in a strange notebook with many yellow pages with ledgerish divisions. The header says "Hospitality Exchange"--my housemate Lily's nonprofit. It must be surplus. It's useless: every page is already covered in scrawls. No room for my dreams!
Then my friend Xanthe phones. I talk with her from bed, my head on a pillow, still half asleep. She tells me a dream about a Tarot card, a Page of Wands or Page of Cups. But my mind wandered. Was it someone called Page? Or a book page. Or BEING paged...
I come back into focus when she asks me a question. About a Tarot dream I had? But I don't know, I had at least two recent Tarot dreams. One was about making a movie; my old dance-classmate Page was a crew member, or maybe an actress. I was the director or producer...
Or was the actress that woman known as THE Page? As opposed to The Knight, also famous, but not in the film...
And then I wake again to find all this was still a dream.
So many different kinds of pages!
NEXT NIGHT
I'm writing an important dream in my journal, but I have no clean pages, so I resume writing in an old journal only half-filled, a journal from 3 years ago. Find a couple more such loops in time-sequence. No problem NOW, but in a decade, when I've forgotten, they may cause problems... I should tear out the entries from different years and get my pages in chronological sequence!
NEXT MORNING
THREE DAYS LATER
Stanley says our dream group's meeting at Cafe Paradiso, in the Haight near the Red Vic. I'm feeling sick--allergic to something I ate yesterday. So I drive rather than bike. No parking at all--the Haight is gridlocked. Finally have to hike in from half a mile off, wishing I hadn't promised to come. Enter Cafe Paradiso for the first time, and...
Page greets me! Haven't seen her in years. She looks beautiful, delicate. We talk a bit. Dropped out of college, but she's still in art classes, and she's about to become assistant manager here. I had such a crush on her, and it all floods back now.
She can't quite remember my name.
I see some of the dream group in the back. I go to sit with duty, leaving unrequited love to serve the front tables.
But a few minutes later, Page comes over. She says "I think there's a phone call for you!" Paged by Page in a cafe where I've never been! Weird. Even though Page can't recall my name, just from what the caller said, she knew it had to be for me...
I wish I hadn't come. But it seems I was fated to...
I sit brooding. Tarot pages, being paged, book pages, Page the film nut, all mixed together... after the dream of time-loops, time-displacement, I wasn't surprised to see her. Just my usual precognition!
But I didn't expect she'd hurt me like that--not even recalling my name! No, SHE didn't hurt me like that. I hung around her KNOWING she wanted friendship, not sex. And I was timid enough to settle for that, for a while. And Page? She was comfortable with my discomfort. I danced my heart out, slaving unpaid on her film, for love...
When someone wants ME, do I use that, like Page did? Someone like... my friends, who I can take or leave? Yeah. Not as blatantly, but I do it too.
I think it's time to be clear about who and what I want, and quit substituting and settling for less. Because by doing that, I'm cheating others, not just myself.
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