I had another strange but memorable dream last night – one of those dreams where you still remember it vividly and in great detail hours later.
I had returned to Los Angeles, only to find myself caught up in some kind of crime drama – like a TV show, I guess. I was trying to find these counterfeiters, but ended up in this woman's apartment who had a child, and the child kept giving me "gifts" of small, living animals. First he gave me a mouse. Then, he gave me a bird. Finally, he gave me a snake. I stuffed each of them into my pocket, even as I was thinking to myself, "I really shouldn't put them all in the same pocket."
I walked out of the woman's apartment, onto what appeared to be a typical Mexico City streetscape, and found that my car was missing. I had some memory of having driven my old Volkswagen bug to the location, but its distinctive dirty-white color and spots of rust were nowhere to be seen.
I walked down to the main street and caught a passing bus, which, despite everything looking like Mexico City, was nevertheless a bus clearly affiliated with Los Angeles. When I boarded the bus, I found I only had Canadian coins in my pocket. I held them and examined the for a long time, puzzled and amazed to find such a conjunction of Canadian money, having no recollection of why I would. There were 3 pennies, a nickel, a quarter and a loonie.
The bus driver was kind, and let me ride anyway, refusing the money. He seemed to find it amusing that I had only Canadian coins, and tried to make conversation with me – I was the only person on the bus. Then, a friendly family of Haitians, dressed as if for church, boarded the bus and began to sing, and I looked out the window of the bus to see not Los Angeles, nor Mexico, but Korea.
I saw the luxuriant, green rice paddies of high summer, and men and women stooped over working the muddy fields wearing those traditional, broad-brimmed, conical, straw hats. One old man looked up at me as the bus waited at an intersection and smiled. The Haitians got off the bus and the bus driver told me that it was the end of the line.
I got off the bus and looked around. I was in the middle of the nowhere, and it was hot and humid. I felt a movement and remembered the animals in my pocket. I pulled the snake out – it was pale and yellow and lethargic, its beady eyes slitted closed. It was evident it had eaten the mouse – there was a bulge in the snake's length. The bird had disappeared. I pulled out a length of chain, like a broken necklace, instead. Somehow this had replaced the bird. I felt sadness.
I woke up.
I wonder if I'm having strange, symbolically overloaded dreams because I'm spending less time on my computer at home? Or is it the springtime weather?
[daily log: walking, 5 km]