I had a dream...
August 04, 2004
...I have many dreams in fact, and they seem to increase in intensity and vividness when I am PMS-ing. [For those of you don't know, and probably don't care, I use PMS very specifically to mean PRE MS. So if I'm actually MS-ing, I don't use this phrase]. But that is neither here nor there really.
The point is I had a dream, mostly involving BK, Jing, and yours truly, although Mr. Inkwell did make a guest appearance, and the dream brought to the fore some issues that I am dealing with lately.
I was back in Philadelphia. It was the middle of winter, but all I had with me were a few items of cutesy, flimsy clothing that showed off my newly svelte figure [not the one I don't have now, but the one I would have then]. I was supposed to be meeting BK and Jing at BK's place, which in my mind, and hence, in my dream is a place of bright airiness. The whole world was cold and gray [including the run down West Philly apartment building in which I was staying], but I knew that once I got to BK's place it would be sunny and warm.
Which brought me to the sort of main dilemma in my dream--how was I to get to BK's place? For some reason I wasn�t going to just use the subway. Instead I was going to take this blimp-like contraption the Jing suggested I use. It was pretty nice actually, made up of these velvety purple couch contraptions, attached to four big, white air balloons/parachutes. So, I put on a really cute, but again flimsy, pink hoodie thing and got on the contraption. I was the only one on it, though Jing was guiding me via tele-screen. I got to a place where I could see BK�s building, but I was suddenly seized by panic when I realized that I didn�t know how to land the contraption, and Jing for some reason was nowhere to be found. Finally, I managed to land the thing on top of the Wanamaker building. When I eventually disentangled myself from the strings of the contraption and got outside I bumped into Mr. Inkwell in the Juniper St. alleyway behind the Wanamaker building. We walked a little ways together, but he was in a hurry to get to somewhere on Market St. [PennDOT? The Gallery? The �we cash checks� notary?], and I had to make my way up to the Parkway�
And that�s where my dream ends, and my next-morning analysis of it begins. Honestly, it�s pretty straight forward. What with my brother in the US and my dad and probably my sister going at the end of the month, I have been thinking a lot about being stateside. It�s sort of like, I know I could go if I wanted to. I can afford it - just barely - but I can. But I�d rather not go on vacation now, at the beginning of my contract, and I�d rather not be there with my whole family and at a time when I�ll probably be so busy helping them out with whatever they�ll be doing that I won�t have time to really spend in Philly. So basically, my dream was about being so close [West Philly] yet so far [in an unwieldy, flying contraption] from where I�d like to be right now, and the people I�d like to be with.
As I�ve mentioned time and again, I miss Philadelphia in waves. And I find myself missing the strangest things. You know, you always think [ok, at least I do] that you don�t want to miss out on that big party, or that cool-sounding event, you�ve got to seize every moment and make the most of it. Sure, sometimes, I think back on the wild parties of my theatre days, or Spring Fling, or the rare beer and porn night, and I�ll smile nostalgically. But when I think back, the moments I miss most were the quiet ones. I have a deep sort of longing for the afternoons in my little studio when I�d come home early from class or work and didn�t have any plans for the night. I would just turn on the telly, and flip through all four of the channels I got, eventually ending up watching 21 Jumpstreet or That 70�s Show. I�d make dinner and clean up a little. Maybe do a little reading, a little chatting. On the freakishly warm days that we got in the middle of December I would sometimes just sit in front of my open window, smoking cloves, and listening to music, praying that no one would interrupt my reverie.
And I miss my sort of one-on-one moments with friends.
I miss hanging out at Mr. Inkwell�s, experimenting with different shisha flavors.
I miss the almost-pretentious �Caf� Paris� that was around the corner where I�d sometimes meet monkeyboy and/or Zenith for a game of scrabble. I miss walking to the TLA on Spring Garden with BK to get some movies, then going back to his place and ordering from the Rice House. I miss sitting with Jing on the roof of 1920�s Commons [even though this only happened like twice].
So yes, more than many things I miss my friends. But, more than ANYTHING I miss my solitude. Cairo is the type of city where you can never really be alone, even when your family isn�t here [like mine is]. Some people like that, but personally I miss being able to be alone pretty much whenever I wanted to be.
*sniff*