a dream about flying

Melvin Sokolsky

Sometimes, an airplane can feel like a death sentence. Hours of your life, wasted, twisted up like a pretzel, hungry and cranky, with approximately one-hundred strangers who are also hungry and cranky and you all have to stay like that for hours, crowding each other's space and breathing each other's air. It's like something out of a horror movie. Some sick form of torture that only a madmen could ever devise.

There are other times though, when it doesn't feel that way at all.

I am writing this on an airplane right now.

And it feels good.

My flight was delayed due to the fog in San Francisco. Would you believe that? I mean, you'd think that by now they would realize that it's usually pretty foggy in San Francisco and plan accordingly. Then, after we boarded, we sat on the ground for another hour while the plane went through de-icing, and guess what?

I still feel good.

I feel better than good. I feel free. I've got about four more hours ahead of me, and I'm not sure that I've ever felt more free. I am somewhere between New York and San Fransisco, somewhere between my boyfriend and my empty bed, somewhere between my family and my future. And I cannot even explain to you how deliciously fucking free I feel.

There's a part of me that feels like a total bitch saying that. Especially if I start thinking about the boy I left in New York, his eyes like icy pinwheels, lost and confused, while I build walls to tear us apart.

“I'm really sad that you're leaving.”

“Oh, come on. I'll see you in four days. It's no big deal.”

And then, “I'm just moody because my vacation is over.”

It's been a whirlwind of a week. It was exactly the vacation I needed but it ended and not a moment too soon. Don't get me wrong, it was perfect, or maybe it was imperfect in all the right ways. The weather was disastrous. During my five days on the east coast, it snowed and rained and snowed and slushed and sleeted and snowed some more. Temperatures dipped down into the single digits, and my bank account came pretty close as well. Still, it was my vacation and I loved every second of it. That is, until I started to drown in it.

You see, I have this habit of isolating myself. When given the option, I'd take at least one hour each day to do nothing but sit in silence and revel in the detail of my own mind. I am a champion daydreamer, a world class fantasizer and my ability to overanalyze is so keen that I've occasionally been called obsessive. Some might argue that tendencies like this are destructive or anti-social. I believe however (and I'm not the only one – my therapist agrees with me!), that these moments of intense thought are crucial to my ability to live a rich and satisfying life.

My personality is highly empathetic. I feel other people feelings, dramas and issues as if they are my own. I'm not really sure why I do this, but I like to think that it's a good thing as it keeps me humble when I'm not otherwise inclined towards that. It does however, have it's drawbacks. Like when the people that I love start to overwhelm me. Like when I start to hate being looked at, let alone touched. Like the fact that I need hours to myself for deep contemplation when other people don't and sometimes this makes a mess of things.

That's why I'm happy to be on this plane. That's why I'm happy to be lost behind my laptop. That's why I'm happy, because I have an excuse. Everyone isolates themselves on planes. They made me turn my phone off. I'm alternating between writing this and reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. Honestly, can you think of anything more romantic than to be reading that on the way back from Brooklyn to San Francisco? I'm totally smitten. Not to mention the fact that I'm weightless, flying through the air, a million miles above every thing that matters. And I've got six whole hours of this. That's enough to make up for all the seclusion I missed this week and then some!

That's not to say that I'd like to stay this way forever. The second my boyfriend left my side, I felt his absence acutely. Not like a wound. Maybe more like a cramp, or the way your muscles ache the day after the gym. Kind of sweet, kind of sore. I'm glad that I've only got four more days until I see him next. I'm glad that he'll be back in Oakland soon. Any longer than that and I would start to get desperate. The way I did before. Wondering if he would prefer some other girl over me, if I had alienated him with my unrelenting need for space.

But I won't worry about those things now. Instead, I'll read my romantic book while I eat pastries that I smuggled in my bag from Brooklyn. I'll marvel at the idea of eating pastries at 36,000 feet. Maybe I'll order a movie or a jasmine tea (I love virgin!). Until I land in San Francisco, this moment is mine.

dream manifesto

nhung

When I was 11, I had this dream. It took place outside of my elementary school, which happens to be located down the street from my childhood home. It was a dream about two boys, both of whom I knew in real life, neither of whom I had ever thought about sexually before (yes, I thought about boys sexually at 11! Stop pretending you didn't.). In the dream, I lost my virginity to one of the boys, while the other stood and watched. I did not however, lose my virginity to him in the normal way. There was no penetration, maybe not even any bodily contact (It's a bit blurry. It was, after all, 15 years ago). It was more just an awareness that it had happened; a strange knowledge that I had chosen to give this boy a piece of my innocence, and a feeling that it was supremely right or meant-to-be.

I woke up that morning and proceeded to have the most gigantic crush of my life on this boy. Then, five years later, at sixteen, I lost my v-card to him on the floor of his friend's sister's dorm room. I felt nothing. I felt less than nothing. We fooled around for a long time before he actually, you know, put it in, and when he finally did, I had to question whether or not he really had, because that's how much it felt like nothing. It was if I was merely carrying out the physical end of a spiritual contract I had made a million years ago.

Don't you think that shit is fucking bizzarre?!

For the longest time, I swore I was psychic. I had other experiences of this type, too. Where I would dream something and it would come true. Or I would dream something and someone would start talking to me about a similar situation the next day. One time I was involved in a very, very bad romance with a paranoid schizophrenic and I developed these nightmares about terrible gruesome creatures only to find out later that the creatures in my dreams matched the description of his schizophrenic delusions exactly. Needless to say, this was a big motivating factor in choosing to never sleep next to him again ever.

Later, I developed an odd recurring dream. Almost every night, I would dream of having sex with one of my close family members. I would wake up every morning disgusted with myself, sometimes in tears. I went to therapy and my therapist assured me that I was not sick or secretly desiring of incestual encounters. Then, I moved away and the dreams stopped. It never occured to me that the dreams were actually my subconcious screaming at me You are too close with these people!!!, despite the fact that the dreams started at the exact same moment when I became too scared to leave my hometown for fear of abandoning my family.

Yup, I've had a long and intense realtionship with the part of my mind that wakes up when my body is sleeping. Even when my dreams are not psychic, or incestuous, they are often vivid and strange; filled with beauty and symbolism and emotions too raw to ever feel in real life. I have come to the conclusion that I would not trade my good dreams in for relief from the bad ones, even when they were seemingly ruining my life. I love dreaming. I love my dreams. They are one of my primary interests and motivations in this life. When I saw Inception, I left the theater pissed that it was not real, because if I could dream for a living I would do it in a second, no matter how dangerous or illegal.

I have long searched for an outlet for my vivid dreaming. If I had any skill at painting or drawing, I would put them on display for the whole world to see. I have tried to write them out, but it is infinitely frustrating. Our language is not designed for such intense things. Over time, I have resigned myself to the sad truth that dreams are not for sharing, and even if they were, how could they possibly mean as much to someone else as they mean to me?

But then, this morning while I was running, I had a thought. It was briliantly sunny out, and the song that was playing on my ipod seemed to complement the weather perfectly. I had a desire that was similar to my desire to share my dreams; I wanted to store that moment and save it for later. I wanted to bring it home to Connecticut and pull it out to show all the people I love who have never been here what a California winter feels like. Then it occured to me that had I never moved here, I'd be one of those people who had never experienced winter in California, and then I started to consider what effect that would have on my dreams.

Sometimes in my dreams, I visit places over and over again. Often these places do not exist in real life, but are evocative of other places that do. Sometimes, I dream of feelings over and over. Sometimes I dream of people who I love, or people I have never even met. I have come to think of all the things I dream about as my dream vocabulary. The pictures and symbols and sounds and feelings my subconcious has latched onto, either in real life or my own vibrant imaginings, have served as a pallette that I've used each night to create an entire dreaming world that I inhabit. What a fucking miracle that our brains are even capable of this!

Even more miraculous is the realization I came to this morning; that our dream vocabularies are (mostly) under our control. That if we cultivate beautiful experiences and think beautiful thoughts, not only will we live beautiful lives, but we'll dream beautiful dreams. And in this way, our dreams are actually moments that encompass our entire lives. Every memory that you thought was gone forever is a part of the material that creates your dreams. Dreams are what our lives look like when time no longer exists; a snapshot of every moment we've experienced all rolled into one, and in this way, when we're dreaming we are infinite and eternal.

Fuck, that was one of the best thoughts I've ever had!!!!!

So good a thought, in fact, that it's where I have decided to start. And I know, I know; technically I've already started. I told you all months ago, about this new beginning and then I halted, stuck. There was a spark, but then it never ignited. I carved out my place and I waited.

And I don't mean to say that I've seen the light. I don't mean to preach at you like some evangelical nutcase claiming that I know the answer because god showed it to me. Rather, it was as if all the thoughts I had been mulling over, arranging and re-arranging in my mind, slowly came to form an image that finally felt right. I realized, very calmly, in a single moment that all I've ever wanted to do was collect dreams. Or more precisely, collect experiences and filter them through the kaleidoscope of my unique perspective to create dreams, and I realized also, that I want to record that process and that ultimately, that is the only imprint I want to leave on this world.

So, here it is: from this moment forth, a new paradigm. I will write as if I'm dreaming. I will write about my dreaming. In the end, they are the same thing; a collection of moments, perceptions, realities. Welcome to my museum

enchanted forest

Suza Scalora

When I was little, I used to read fairy tales. Weetzie Bat fairy tales. Tarot card fairy tales. Books were my religion. Children went to church with their families, I was curled up at home reading fairy tales.

When it was time to grow up, I never knew how. People asked me what would you like to be? and my heart would answer i'd like to be an artist. i'd like to be a hero. What does anyobody want to be except exactly who they are?

Fairy tales do not tell you what you will have to sell in order to pay your rent. They do not tell you what you end up trading for your success. There are no instructions for what to do when your work becomes a monster that steals your time, your energy, your ability to trust and love. There is no handsome prince who comes to slay the beast.

I have heard tales of those who do things differently. But they are tales. Not false, necesarilly, but pleasant and polite. Whenever someone whom I admire is interviewed about how they got where they are, I wish they'd stop talking about how important it is to follow your dreams and just tell me how the fuck they paid their rent while they were waiting for their dreams to make money.

So, this is where I am now. In the woods. Not pleasant. Not pretty. But I didn't promise to be pleasant or pretty, I promised to be honest. In all honesty, I wish I had something beautiful to share with you, but I just don't