Dream about an invalid friend
Aug. 15th, 2006 06:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaA friend came to visit. It was clear she was very ill. She should've been in a hospital, but she came to my house instead. "I knew you wouldn't rob me of the pleasures that make life worth living," she said.
She was frenetic with desperate energy. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat. When she ate, she stuffed herself with abandon. She couldn't keep anything down but the very weakest broths, yet insisted on stuffing herself with rich foods and sweets. Roasts, pies, huge mounds of icecream.
She wanted me to go about my life, or something even better, each moment she was full of suggestions about things we could do, places we could go, people we needed to see. People arrived to visit her all hours of the day and night. I didn't have control anymore.
For some reason we started attracting youth. Teenagers started working in the garden, putting out patio furniture where they could smoke and bull. And wildlife arrived. All sorts of strange and unusual animals started nesting in and about the house. The house became squalid, but stuffed with life. Art work and poetry covered everything, even the inside of the washing machine.
("You can't wash the clothes," one teenage boy argued with me. "It'll ruin my masterpiece."
"Beauty is impermanant. This is what makes it precious," I said, shaking my head at his own youthful beauty.
"But it is permanant," he said, taking my comments about his work literally. "I used indelible ink."
"Then it shouldn't be ruined by the washing," I said and proceeded with the laundry.)
My friend was finally resting and happy, taking care of the needs of her body without losing her pleasure in life. We stopped worrying about her death and begin to accept its inevitability, either in months, or in the normal lifespan of years. There were still problems, the neighbors shaking their heads at the noise, mess, and lack of propriety. But a sense of balance and rightness reigned in all that chaos, I found as much as I hated relinquishing control, I couldn't help but love the strange disorder that now ruled.
She was frenetic with desperate energy. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat. When she ate, she stuffed herself with abandon. She couldn't keep anything down but the very weakest broths, yet insisted on stuffing herself with rich foods and sweets. Roasts, pies, huge mounds of icecream.
She wanted me to go about my life, or something even better, each moment she was full of suggestions about things we could do, places we could go, people we needed to see. People arrived to visit her all hours of the day and night. I didn't have control anymore.
For some reason we started attracting youth. Teenagers started working in the garden, putting out patio furniture where they could smoke and bull. And wildlife arrived. All sorts of strange and unusual animals started nesting in and about the house. The house became squalid, but stuffed with life. Art work and poetry covered everything, even the inside of the washing machine.
("You can't wash the clothes," one teenage boy argued with me. "It'll ruin my masterpiece."
"Beauty is impermanant. This is what makes it precious," I said, shaking my head at his own youthful beauty.
"But it is permanant," he said, taking my comments about his work literally. "I used indelible ink."
"Then it shouldn't be ruined by the washing," I said and proceeded with the laundry.)
My friend was finally resting and happy, taking care of the needs of her body without losing her pleasure in life. We stopped worrying about her death and begin to accept its inevitability, either in months, or in the normal lifespan of years. There were still problems, the neighbors shaking their heads at the noise, mess, and lack of propriety. But a sense of balance and rightness reigned in all that chaos, I found as much as I hated relinquishing control, I couldn't help but love the strange disorder that now ruled.
