So, I've been incredibly lucky in that I chose the second week of school to get sick - I'm not being sarcastic, this is actually a good thing, because I chose to do it before the work got to be too overwhelming, though to tell you the truth, the work is already making me nervous as it is. And to think that I tried to take five AP classes...
In any case, I've lost my voice, and I've been coughing up some sort of wetness in my lungs since Wednesday or so, and because it's been going on for so long (and because my dad contracted what seems to be the same illness last night), we went to the doctor today. The PA gave us a prescription for some anti-biotics and seemed to be optimistic that my voice would return and that I would be feeling better when classes resume on Tuesday (tomorrow is Labor Day).
The coughing has been keeping me from sleeping most nights, and any sleep that I've gotten has included troubled dreams, not excluding last night, I'm sure. But in a shocking way, I remembered part of my dream from last night and it was actually quite wondrous.
My dad and I had actually just signed in at Primecare, where he was told that we would have an hour and a half of a wait - he was hungry, and so we left for lunch. We went to a Mexican restaurant called El Sombrero, which is near where K-mart used to be (now The Grand). I remembered going there once with my old friend Sofia's family. So we went inside and were seated in the right-back corner of the restaurant, just underneath a stunning painting that caught my eye and kept it during most of the meal.
It was a painting of a city at night, situated around a circular harbor that opened at the farthest end to the sea. The city was alive and colorful, with tall, glass office buildings and rainbow neon lights. It looked like a fun place to be at night - a place where you could leave your apartment for a stroll, stumble into an arts festival, hear a couple of bands playing live on the streets, and then walk along the ocean, watching the boats' progress across the harbor.
I felt the lovely jolt of deja vu - and then the elusive silk of my unconscious slid back into place.
In at least part of the dream last night, I was on a boat with my mother and father - it was like how it was a few years after they split up, to where they were civil enough to go on vacations together - and we were out on the dark ocean, but I wasn't worried, because we weren't piloting the boat. It seemed to be something like a cruise, though it was a bit smaller and there weren't swimming pools on the top decks or anything like that. It was a lot less ostentatious. I could smell the ocean and hear it breathe beneath us. We were all at the front of the boat, having spotted a bit of light on the horizon. Presently, we were pulling into a circular harbor almost identical to the one in the picture, and a gleaming, silver city spread out all around us. There was something very clean and futuristic about this city, though it wasn't too upright to abstain from being the site of good concerts and other nighttime revelry.
As we navigated the center of the harbor, I wondered aloud, "What city is this?!"
My mom answered my question: "This is Toronto." Her tone was surprised, as she knew that Toronto was the city in Canada that I most wanted to visit, and she figured that I would know what it looked like (that is to say, what it looked like it the dream...I don't know how close to reality my dream was).
I thought of the things I wanted to do there: I wanted to go to the museums, walk along the water, go to a few concerts, and lay some flowers by the grave of Glenn Gould. But it was up to my parents, as to whether we would get to do these things.
"When the boat docks, can we go and look around a bit?" I asked.
My dad nodded and I gripped the railing at the front of the ship, looking eagerly toward the dock, which we slowly approached.
This is all that I remember of the dream.
In other news, today I was considering the human condition, as I tend to do when I grow weary of such mundane tasks as coughing and doing homework. I was moved by nostalgia to consider the perpetual excitement of children. I was thinking in particular about three bands that animated many car rides for me as a child - the punk rock bands Rancid and the Ramones, and the folk singer Bob Dylan. There's also some sort of saying along these lines: "Don't waste the journey thinking about the destination when half the fun is getting there!" And I found it curious to consider this saying in juxtaposition with childhood, when a child tends to fantasize about the destination (growing up) more than at any other age but still somehow enjoy the journey more. I remember one specific occasion in particular, when my mom picked me up from my dad's house, and we were going to go to Arby's or some other such place for dinner before going back home to the apartment. She played my favorite song on the Rancid cd, "The Roots, the Radicals" (that's probably not what it is really called), and I bobbed in the backseat, singing, looking out the window, and just felt that the night was charged with electricity, with adventure waiting to happen! My enthusiasm was such that when the song was over, my mom turned down the music for a minute and regarded me warily in the rear-view mirror. "What are you so happy about?" she asked me curiously. I shrugged. I was alive - I was filled with inexplicable relief and there was nothing to be sad about.
I'm sure all of you remember an experience like this, even if it did not involve traveling in a car at night or punk rock music - but I bet you would agree with me that if that feeling could be harnessed and distributed, then someone would be very rich indeed.
That is to say, the inventor would be materially rich and the consumers would all be spiritually rich.
There were other moments too! Other solitary ones, like riding my bike in the fall and smelling the leaves and receiving that same intoxication! Or that surge of joy when you're walking along the palm-tree lined road and you catch that first glimpse of the ocean, ever-eternal, up ahead, dominating the horizon like a blue heaven. It was like flat soda this last time, walking with my dad, Heather, and Hope from our parking spot to the opening between the trees. I saw it - and appreciated it too, in a composed, formal way - but Hope saw it. And when she saw it, she did what any person in their right mind should do when encountered with something so endless and beautiful: she kicked off her shoes and ran splashing into the water, and I stood watching her, thinking to myself, "How?"
Where does all the joy go? Not that I am utterly joyless now, just composedly joyful about a smattering of things, and somewhat ignorant of the things that used to make me so joyful, apparently.
Every now and then, like a dream, I remember in jolts. I hear that the fair is coming to town, and I envision the rides, smell the roast corn, and imagine the excited voices of people shrieking and laughing and talking, and it is like a brief leap in the pit of my stomach. Then it settles, and that is all. It is like the man Bretodeau in "Amelie de Montmartre," paraphrased, "Tout qui demeure de mon enfance va dans une boite" (All that remains from my childhood fits in a box).
It is the same when I have jolts of remembered joy, and it is sad sometimes, like a CD skipping. But I maintain that this is why it is important to be present in life, and to enjoy the moment, seize the day, etc.
It is also how I like to imagine the "flourishing" that our pastor Dr. Daniel alludes to when he speaks of Heaven.
Something like that, perpetually.
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