The Sinking Dreams

Last night I had yet another sinking dream. I have been having them for years. Ok. One year at least. They all involve me either falling through a deep hole into another world, trying to climb a small hill and being thwarted by either soft snow or sand, or falling into rushing water. And, they all have something to do with the Antarctic Program.

Before these started, I would have dreams about traveling north, north, north to icy lands where I would be happy and feel good. I've had several of these. Traveling home to some icy place. But then about a year ago, I started having a hard time getting there and started to fall.

Last night's dream consisted of me falling through the snow. I was clutching to the rim of an ever deepening and ever widening hole. I was at South Pole. I was struggling to right myself. As I clutched the dissolving rim, I looked down to see miles of deep space beneath me. In this cavern were really tall, thin pillars made of snow and ice. Right beneath me, just a bit of a fall below, was the top of one of the pillars. I thought I could try to swing around and hope that when I did fall through I would land on the top of the ice pillar. I dropped and I missed. So I flew. Luckily in this dream I could choose to fly, and I started to fly over all the pillars and through the tunneling ice cave back, back towards the dark. Beyond the dark turned out to be the first, true Old Pole. At the real South Pole there is a buried station we call Old Pole. It was the first station built in the 1950's and is currently 60+ feet under the surface . . . and is very much off limits to us. In this dream Old Pole was a secret one, built before that. It kind of reminded me of that myth that the center of the Earth is inhabited with the alternate Earth and the entrance is at the South Pole. You heard that one?

So, I arrived at the real Old Pole and after a tour of the "smoking building," which was as big as a mall, I attempted to get a meal and sit down with folks. My ex-boss was there and another coworker. I had a hard time getting through the food line and sitting down because my pet rodent (of some indescribable species -- it kind of reminded me of that thing in the Lion King) kept running out of my hands and wouldn't stay put. I was afraid that it would be mistaken for a pest and killed. It was almost eaten by a neighboring diner. I couldn't concentrate and had a really hard time managing everything because of this pet rodent that wouldn't behave. I felt out of place, like a bad care-giver, and a lonely outsider.

Then I woke up.

I want to know what dropping into snow holes where there is a subterranean world might mean. I want to know why my ex-boss is always there. I want to know why I'm having such a hard time walking up hills -- the sand and snow just falling away under my feet. I want to know why freezing, fast rivers are carrying me away.

And I want to know why these dreams bring me such comfort . . . and why I so look forward to having another.

Putting It Out There

And so it begins . . . me, putting it out there. My friend came up with the name when we were talking about me doing this blog experiment. Who knows what it will lead to, and where I actually want to take it. Doesn't matter tonight. Tonight I need to just begin. Just do something. Because sitting alone in a blissfully air conditioned house, thinking about communicating and thinking about writing and thinking about buying a camera and just starting to make those damn movies in my head doesn't cut it. One step forward, right? One blind, small, unclear step forward and it all begins.

I live in Denver . . . South of Denver really. A woman at my work calls it Beigeistan. Every house is band aid colored. All the minivans are white. Hell, most of the people are white. And the landscape is bleak. There aren't a lot of trees. They seem to just get in the way. This year there isn't even much green grass, except where the subdivisions water. It's brown and dusty and hot. And this is where I grew up and this is where I return and this is what I call home. I think landscapes define us. Or at least effects us. I love bleak. I hate not being able to see to the horizon. I love HUGE sky. I love watching clouds move miles away. I love being up a bit so I can see even further. Open and lifeless and bleak. Fantastic!

When I don't live here, I work in Antarctica. At the South Pole. Talk about bleak. Flat white nothingness for . . . well . . . ever. We are 800 miles from anything else . . . and the sky is big there. Big and clear and light blue and endless. I feel like I can breathe in these landscapes. Stillness. Nothing living. Everything scalded away. Perfect. Too much moving and too much breathing and needing and making noise . . . it just clutters up the mess that's already here.

When I drive to work across this grand, dead Beigeistan, I watch the sun glare sideways across the brown, dry weeds and grasses. I watch the morning clouds way up in the sky, rolling. I watch the light turn pink in the low, long windows of the office buildings. Nothing is more than three stories tall, and all are set far away from the next. Buzzing and careening around are the minivans and SUV's and Outbacks -- all driven by the extremely pissed. What makes these people so damn mad, who knows. But at 7:00 a.m., they are definitely out to kill me. I drive slowly. I want to listen to some great song or other and watch the sun rise and think a minute on my way through. I don't own a cell phone. I don't listen to the radio. I load up the CD changer thingo with CD's that don't bug me and sing at the top of my lungs. I watch the nothingness float by and I drive to work. Is that so wrong?

I look at my landscape and wonder why no one makes movies here. What I think is so interesting is the contrast . . . here I live in this wasteland and inside of it are all the conflicts and dramas and passions of a life. Here in this wasteland live thousands of stories and loves and problems and messes and lives and you would never believe it from looking. The same is true at Pole. It's a tiny place, really, and I can live there for months and feel like I'm living a whole, huge, complicated life -- contained in less than a mile square. Hell, sometimes I never leave the building. Days of my life are spent in one building, at the bottom of the earth, and I feel fine with that.

I don't really know what that all means right now. It's just something to think on.

So there. Beginning. Let's see where this takes us, shall we?