A Few Dreams

Dreams ...

I am outside the world looking down on it – seeing the blue oceans and continents from space.  And then I soar towards earth, closer and closer, like a Google map.  Finally, I recognize a large mountain range -- rocky and barren. I fly over it, thinking that maybe it’s the Alps.  I come closer yet until I’m cruising over a quaint village of old-fashioned shops and restaurants with a cobblestone street -- something from 18th century London.  Lights are on, but it’s still dusk. I fly above the streetlamps, feeling happy to be there and wanting to stay.  I continue to drift over the town and wake up, wishing I could go back to the dream.

*            *            *

I am riding a very small horse.  In real life it would be more goat-sized, but he’s a horse in my dream. And I take him on a long ride with obstacles in our path; we’re having difficulty getting back home.  At one point we wade through a stream, and cross a rocky slope. I’m afraid he’ll trip and fall.  We cross an uneven meadow and come to an Eastern monastery with flowing water and attendants and a modern structure where people are filing in.  I get off my horse and lead him up a manmade waterfall and into the building with the other people. It’s serene and peaceful inside.  We pass through and continue homeward.  There’s a large structure, like a bridge overpass, that we can’t get across.  We need to go around, and I’m concerned about the distance and whether my horse will be all right and make it up the slope.  Then I wake up.

I went into a theatre auditorium, which had rows of chairs flat on the floor, not slanted as they usually are in a theatre.  Our seats were in the first row, but since my husband wasn’t there, I went into the lobby to call him. I couldn’t get my phone to work properly.  Every time I punched in a number, something was wrong and I couldn’t get through.  The play began; I heard the actors’ dialogue and wanted to be watching, but I was worried about Ron, and kept trying to call him, getting more and more frustrated that I couldn’t get the phone to work.
I went to the lobby window that faced the sea. In the water was a small fishing boat, and someone had a straining fishing rod in the water.  The line was bowed with the weight, and I wondered what the person had caught.  A rather stout woman in a wetsuit went into the water.  She was evidently wondering what was on the other end of the line too.  (Line, as in phone line??)  As I watched her swim to the boat, the water cleared so that I could see beneath the surface.
The fisherman had caught a black and white pony on his line, and the pony was drowning.  As I watched, the lady in the wetsuit reached the pony, wrapped her arms around him, pulled him to the surface and brought him to shore.  The pony was all right; he’d survived.  I was so overjoyed that when the woman came inside the lobby, I gushed with gratitude and praise, and thanked her for what she’d done: saving the pony.  She looked at me as if I was a nutcase, as if it wasn’t any big deal.  Then I woke up.

My husband and I were in a taxi driving in a dark part of a city unfamiliar to us.  The car stopped and two men with strange-looking guns pointed at us through the windows.  We were afraid to move.  I thought we might be shot – that they wanted to rob us. Instead, an old man got into the front seat.  His silver hair was long and wavy, and at first he didn’t say anything or turn around to where we were sitting, anxious and afraid.  After a minute, he turned his head and said to me, “I am your grandfather.” Since I’d never seen him before I understood that he was my ‘birth’ grandfather – not my adopted one.  He got out of the car and began to hurry up the street without saying anything more.  So I got out and ran after him, asking him questions.  He wouldn’t answer except to say that he had to leave.
I followed him to a small, old building, with a lobby and adjacent room.  I went through the lobby and saw a group of people sitting on the floor in the room.  They were practicing yoga – each in a different position.  I looked around the corner and saw my grandfather lounging on a raised platform. He had on different clothes – bright-colored satin, and his long, silver hair flowed out around him.  He was smiling and talking; he seemed to be their guru. I decided this wasn’t my scene, so I left to find my husband. He didn’t ask where I’d been.  We walked in the dark street, hunting for a taxi, and came to a store, which was closed. Everything was closed.  In front of the store was a dolly piled with carpet remnants, and a man lay on top of the carpets, asleep.  He appeared at first to be a bum, or a homeless person.  My husband got a shovel and hit the man on the head.  I was appalled. (In real life he would never do such a thing, either.) The man began to mumble things, and I saw that he was very rough-shaved, as if he’d shaved with a dull knife.  There were red marks around his neck and throat.  He also wore a soldier’s uniform. I was shocked that my husband had hit a soldier, and said that I was upset about this man being here, probably homeless and a soldier. Then I woke up.

My husband and I were at a weekend workshop inside a complex of town-house style buildings.  A large group of people was there, and we were to spend the weekend moving from one workshop to the next, all located within the complex.  The first one I learned about was a biology lab experience, and a woman asked me if I had any prior education in biology that would give me the ability to use a computer to keep track of data gleaned from the experiments in the lab.  I said no, but that I was a quick study and was willing to learn, but that I wouldn’t dissect any animals, not one.  She asked me if was more mentally alert in the morning or at night.  I said night, so I was assigned to an evening session.

We continued on our tour of the complex.  While in an upstairs room of one of the townhouses, I looked out the window and saw the building we were in sinking into the ground.  Evidently, there was a threat outside, and this group had devised a method for hiding their buildings in the ground so they wouldn’t be detected.  I was never clear exactly what the threat was.  But at one point, my husband and I were outside when the nearest townhouse dropped slowly into the ground.  We frantically searched for a way inside before it was too late.  Ron made it in, and I tried, but didn’t make it.  So, I went around to the other side of the townhouse to steps that led down and inside.

The room was crowded with people who immediately checked my shoe for an identifying red dot that said I was ‘one of them.’  Some of us hustled to the next workshop, where I saw my husband and told him I’d been assigned the biology night shift, and that I wasn’t happy about it.  We lost track of each other, and I lost the group I was with.  So I followed another group outside and through a beautiful expanse of green mountains and rolling hills. We came to a stone wall, turned left, and before us was a crystal green pool filled with aquatic animals – a large number of green turtles the size of dinner plates, exotic birds I’d never seen, and a mammal that floated on his back and looked something like an otter, except that the fur on his head was much longer. I kept asking what the creature was called.  No one answered me.  But I decided I would much rather be out here in this beautiful, enchanted garden learning more about these animals than working inside in a biology lab. And I woke up.

Anti-communication

The trend in instant messaging, texting, emails allow us to alienate and insulate ourselves from others, and put up barriers to real communication.  At the same time we push ourselves into chat rooms and social networking sites, we invite closeness without being close. The barrier encourages bullies, allows them to be hurtful anonymously. And without face-to-face communication, misinterpretation of words can cause inappropriate to vengeful behavior.  And what about blogs?  People rant on about all kinds of things that could come back to bite them down the line.

A Surprise Ending

The night we attended the San Francisco Opera was not free of incident.  Although we found a place to park on a street very close to the opera house, which I thought was a bit of a miracle, my husband  thought it safer to park inside a nearby garage, and so we did.

We walked to a restaurant around the corner with a contemporary decor and casual vibe.  The movie Amelie played on a huge screen, with subtitles, no sound. We had a ‘squashy’ meal - butternut squash risotto, a delicious butternut squash salad with Brussels sprouts, plus sides of diced butternut squash and toy box squash in a tomato sauce.  Everything was excellent, as was the opera,  The Magic Flute -- exquisite voices and orchestra, gorgeous costumes and set.

Afterwards, we walked to a nearby bar that many patrons had for some unearthly reason given a high rating on Yelp. Those folks really need to get out more. I asked for vodka up with olives, and the server brought over a dish of olives and nuts.  I asked for a twist instead and received vodka with a twist AND olives in the same glass.

The night was clear on the walk back to the car. But when we arrived at the parking garage, we quickly realized that it had closed and our car was locked up inside. An über picked us up minutes later, and a lovely gentleman from Alexandria, Egypt took us home at a cost of $150. We retrieved our car the next morning.

In Defense of North America

Roy Beck, American journalist and public policy analyst,  is right when he says immigration can't accomplish the goal of relieving world poverty.  I don't think the government ever stated that it could.  Too bad his message offers nothing constructive, no suggestions about ways to reduce poverty or hunger, or provide aid to these poor countries, or even links to service organizations. In his final comments he says that we should let the citizens of these poor countries, many of them under the thumb of dictators, 'bloom where they are planted.'  Well, it's a little hard to bloom when you haven't any water. Beck leaves the stage, and they're left high and dry as his audience applauds. 

His is an apples and oranges argument, the aim to confuse and obfuscate, and incite fear and anger toward people in this country 'not like us' - i.e. not born and raised here -- who use our resources and take our jobs, never mind that they also produce jobs, or that we've got the room. Even highly populated U.S. cities can't compare to the crowded conditions in Mumbai or Shanghai.

North America IS fortunate. What did we do differently?  We gave priority to education, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to worship as you please; we wrote the Bill of Rights into our Constitution, championed the democratic process. Women are not oppressed or subservient--at least not at the moment; we have equal rights, reproductive rights and effective birth control methods--at the moment. Our smaller populations demand and consume fewer goods and services. We are provided better health care.

Maybe North America could be called 'lucky.' But other countries like New Zealand, Switzerland, Singapore, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, the continent of Australia, and cities like London and Paris fare well too. The people suffering for one reason or another -- mainly because of an oppressive or corrupt political system, poor industrialization, fewer resources, lack of birth control or women's rights, lack of religious freedom, little education -- will continue to suffer. If they're going to find their way to better lives, education is essential. The hurdles are great, maybe insurmountable, and we, who live in 'lucky' countries, have an opportunity to help. The world is interconnected and interdependent, like it or not. 

Smoking

I confess that I am rather critical of smoking. At the very least, it is an inconsiderate habit when someone feels he has the right to smoke around others whether they like it or not.  My parents were both very heavy smokers when I was growing up.  I'd often get car sick because the car reeked of cigarettes and I was breathing the smoke. To this day, my stomach tightens if I'm in a car frequented by smokers.  Just walking along a street I can pick out a smoker's car, his house, simply by the smell. Eating next to a smoker at an outdoor restaurant? Forget it. I'll move to another table.  Does the smoker care that I do so?  Probably not.  It's his right to smoke outside. Should I be forced inside just so that I'm not ingesting smoke with my food? On a cold day I think:  Look what your addiction is doing to you - affecting your quality of life to the extent that you freeze out here, just because you have to smoke.

But much more than that, I think that an addiction to tobacco is as harmful as an addiction to alcohol.  How many forest fires have destroyed acres of beautiful trees, homes, wildlife habitats, killed firefighters, animals, and used up natural resources like water to control the blaze?  How many homes have burned to the ground, sometimes killing the inhabitants, because a careless smoker fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand?  What about the cancer statistics -- the proven fact that tobacco causes cancer of the mouth, esophagus, lungs?  Non-smokers - people forced to breathe second hand smoke - are at risk of cancer too.  If a smoker doesn't kill himself with tobacco - often prematurely - he may kill someone else, usually a loved one.  How selfish is that? My aunt (my mom's sister) died of lung cancer. She was only in her 50's - and a heavy smoker. My mother was completely devastated, and the family felt the loss for some time. The silver lining was that both my parents gave up smoking on the spot, cold turkey, and never smoked again.  Doing so probably prolonged their lives.

On the Amazon

The Brazilian Amazon River is a muddy brown color and immense. Clusters of people live along the banks, which are visible most of the time. Our first stop was Santarem (pronounced SantaREEM) - a big city.  We walked a couple of miles but found little to see except a fish market selling lots of unrefrigerated fish. I wondered what they did with the fish that didn't sell. A boat ride reminded me of the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland.  It was a similar kind of scene, except for a few differences:  At the meeting of the muddy waters of the Amazon and the blue waters of the Tapajos Rivers (called the Meeting of the Waters), we found pink dolphins leaping around. On the banks were horses, cows, chickens, dogs, goats and small farms.  Living conditions, in most cases, were horrendous.  We were given the chance (?) to catch piranhas.  There are three varieties - black, gray and red.  I didn't care to try, but 3 people caught 8-10-inch black ones. The guide was very pleased. Evidently, the black piranhas are considered viagra.  :-\  He said the crew would have them for dinner.  The day was hot and humid so we arrived back on our ship ready for showers.

The next day we took the tender to a small village called Boca Da Valeria that mimicked the way Indians lived centuries ago. Children were dressed in Indian costumes, others held parakeets, sloths, iguanas, monkeys, and parrots (for the purpose of having their picture taken for a dollar).The kids treat sloths like teddy bears and one had gotten himself wrapped up in the cord around his neck and was strangling. I pointed this out to the man with him who got the sloth untangled. Further on, we saw a young child holding a puppy by his paw, like a rag doll.  I went over to him and moved his hand so that it went around the puppy's middle, and hoped the lesson would stick. One child had a tarantula on a leash. 

We wandered away from the village and found some actual dwellings where people lived in pretty rustic conditions with their dogs and cats and chickens. The language (Portuguese) made it impossible for us to say much more than the basics like thank you and please.  

During the rainy season the water rises about 10 feet and where we walked is underwater.  The heat was dramatic.

Along the Rio Negro we hiked with a nature guide into the jungle.  It was hot and steamy, even in the shade, but, surprisingly, we were not swarmed by bugs.  Along the way, we learned a great deal about the way of life of the indigenous people in stone-age times, and the valuable knowledge they still possess about plants, trees and insects. We saw black, poisonous ants an inch long.  One sting can kill you. Three sings will kill you. They looked pretty scary.  Somehow (our guide didn't explain how) the poison is harvested to make poison darts once used in hunting.  We drank tea made from cinnamon bark, clove bark, and a tree I can't pronounce that produces quinine. We also ate a bit of the leaf. Quite bitter.  Our guide pointed out another tree whose milky substance is supposedly a cure for some types of cancer. And my husband was brave and ate the larva of the dragonfly that is often found inside a small coconut shell.  (The hole in the shell is the giveaway.)  He said it tasted like a coconut jellybean. We drank water from a root. Tasted very sweet.  

Iceland

Reykjavik (ray-ka-vik), the largest city, was our first stop with a population of 300,000 including a high percentage of beautiful women with blue eyes, blond hair and fine features. The school children we saw were almost entirely blond.  The lcelandic language is closest to Olde English, although most residents speak modern-day English extremely well.  I expect it’s easier to learn than Icelandic. 

On the ship we passed Eyiafjalla-jokull - the volcano that erupted in March of 2010 – bringing further attention to Iceland just two years after the financial meltdown of 2008.  In town, we enjoyed a 3-mile walk that led from the ship along the waterfront where families of ducks nestled in the grass. On the other side of the main road a small, unassuming white house still stands where Gorbachev and Reagan conducted their talks to end the cold war.  We enjoyed extraordinary meals that included local fish, and unusual, delectable preparations combining vegetables and grains and tasty seasonings. Whale meat was on the menu too, and representatives from IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) walked around the town asking tourists to sign pamphlets stating that they would refrain from eating whale meat.  (If tourists eat it, the whaling industry is encouraged to kill more whales.) We had no intention of ordering it, but someone we met did. "It was on the menu!” she objected when I showed her the IFAW pamphlet.  I wanted to reply,  "If they'd had horse or dog meat on the menu, would you have eaten it?”  Still, Icelanders eat lots of ‘different’ meats, including cured ram, puffin, singed sheep heads and black pudding. The sun didn’t set until after midnight.

The following day we took a whale-watching trip that we feared would be a bust.  Although the boat pushed further and further out, no whales could be seen – only gannets and other sea birds that hovered near the boat or skimmed across the water as they hunted for fish.  But finally we saw fins, and the reason we’d not seen minke whales or humpbacks became apparent: The fins belonged to a family of orcas.  Being at the top of the food chain in the underwater world, these carnivors are given a wide berth.  They’ve been known to attack young blue whales (the largest species of whale) as well as humpbacks, and their love of seal meat is well documented.  On the way back to shore we passed a puffin habitat on a small island, which provided another photo opportunity.

Isafjordur (eesa-for-dure), our second stop, was a lovely, small town that was constructed by foreign traders in the late 18^th century.  Despite its size it has a school of music. We took a ferry to a small island called Vigur, which can be covered on foot in 10 minutes.  It is a nesting ground for Eider ducks, puffins and Arctic terns.  Only 4 people live on the island – just 2 in winter (to look after the animals).  To keep the terns from attacking us as we walked past their nesting grounds, we carried sticks with flags on top.  I felt very uncomfortable doing so. The birds were clearly upset and we were the cause.  Nests were left uncovered because the birds moved away when we came by. Our guide disturbed a duck sitting on her nest and didn't think much about it.  In the nest was a newly-hatched chick. We moved on quickly while others stood around taking photos.  Later, I asked the guide how long the chick could remain uncovered without freezing.  (We were all in coats, hats, scarves, gloves. The island was very cold.) She said an hour.  I wonder. "The birds are used to it," she added (meaning, they are used to dealing with visitors.)  I looked at her, my eyes saying, "They shouldn't be."  Last to leave was a woman intent on her photographs.  As she moved on, I kept my eyes on the spot, watching for the mother duck to return.  She did, and I'm guessing that she was off her nest maybe 10 minutes.  Maybe her chick and three eggs were OK.  On the other side of the coin is the living these locals make by selling the eider down.  The down is regularly collected, cleaned and made into pillows and comforters. Still, I was glad to leave the birds in peace. We need to educate ourselves and boycott these fragile areas, and the 'demand' end of tourism needs to be controlled so that it doesn't drive the boat.  

Akureyri (Aker-air-I) is the second largest urban city in Iceland, as well as an important port and fishing center. It was also the warmest of the places we visited, though that’s not saying much.  We still wore four layers, but were able to dispense with the gloves and hats part of the time. On foot we climbed the hills and looped around the city, enjoying the views and the gorge that provides hydroelectric power.  Later, we visited the botanical gardens - very pretty - and drove to Godafoss Falls - a smaller version of Niagara Falls. Worth the trip.  We were told that melting glaciers flowing from the mountains create the falls - understandable since snow often falls in June and resumes by August!  Summers are almost non-existent. But polar bears are rarely seen these days. Only when winters are cold enough for the water to freeze between Greenland and Iceland do the bears hop across.