Old Abodes and Broken Highways tells the story of a recurring dream mixed with real experience. I find myself in a low-rent tenement area of some unknown yet large city. I don’t know how I got there. I fear unfamiliar and antagonistic people. The area is under the complicated structure of a highway mix master. This structure includes elevated, unfinished highways. High up in the air, they simply stop. They evoke an image of cars driving off the end. I have seen such highways in the Dallas Texas area. They are familiar. That angst is real.
Other recurring dreams find me trying to get somewhere, probably home. Sometimes I’m traveling across multiple states on unknown highways trying to figure out the map or GPS. Other times I try to find the right bridge. I need to get onto it and then off to reach the parking lot at an airport. Often those include images of waiting anxiously for flights that don’t take off. Or, worse yet, I am trapped inside. The prop-jet climbs from the terminal. We are in the midst of giant jets that nearly knock us out of the sky.
I am not alone. Sometimes I recognize people around me. Often I talk with people I don’t know. In living rooms, lobbies, terminals. All strange and uncomfortable.
In this particular dream, the discourse turns philosophical as I share my thoughts with a total stranger. “What if we lived forever? Would it not be better to be completely open with everyone we meet? Should we keep our innermost secrets to ourselves for eternity? Or would we all be better off just being real?”
“On the other hand”, said the stranger. “Would it not be better to keep those very personal thoughts to yourself? Everyone would see you differently with the knowledge.”
“Think of it like heaven”, I said. “In heaven, we are told, there is no fear, no anger. There are no tears. There is only happiness, peace, and joy. How can it be that we hold secrets from each other? Should they, would they, not be known?
“Would we even have dark thoughts? Things we want to hide or not share? Why must we wait for heaven to be real, to be whole, to love unconditionally?”
Waking up, I could not shake these thoughts. Surely, I am not alone in keeping thoughts to myself. It’s not that I have bad thoughts to hide. Though sometimes I am less than kind in my view of others. Often I feel that I would hurt this or that person by sharing what I am thinking. “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.” My parents used to say.
But we spend so much energy trying to say the right thing. In fact, our whole society has devolved into forming our discourse to avoid any potential criticism, abuse, or defamation. I certainly don’t want to offend, just as I don’t like others’ offensive characterizations.
Obviously, this is only a mind exercise brought on by an unreal dream. Yet it does make me ponder life better lived if we just accept each other as we are. Surely someone will say, “In your dreams!”
