Peeking over the edge of the camera view, I am standing at the square near the river that runs through the center of Ekaterinburg, Russia, May 2012. Seems nowadays I am peeking over the edge of a new journey.
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Dreaming off the edge…
I woke this morning (1/4/13) with a start. My heart was still pounding from the last remembered scene in my dream. It was about 9:20 am, a little while before the alarm I’d set would go off, but about 90 minutes after I’d fallen back asleep after letting the dogs out for their morning constitution.
Although I cannot recall all the details of my dream, as with other dreams I’ve written about, I’ll try and share what I can here:
I was driving on an elevated highway heading towards a fork in the highway. I didn’t know which way I should go. Beyond the view of the two diverging ramps, all that was visible was blue sky. My speed was not in my control, and the vehicle – I think it was the truck for it felt higher off the road than my car – was moving at a very fast pace. I started to panic and reached out to both sides of the car, both hands outstretched could reach the door frames. I remember thinking “how is this possible?” I shouldn’t be able to reach both sides, am I in a covered motorcycle? No. I realized I must be both driver and passenger. As I was cruising very fast towards the split, I could finally read a green and white highway sign which said “I-75 North” and a curved arrow pointing towards the left. I remember thinking “Grab the steering wheel and turn” but when I reached for the steering wheel, it was too late and the momentum took me straight off the highway into thin air. I never hit the ground. I remember seeing it very very far away, as if falling from a high altitude airplane when the landscape below is still very abstract. It seemed to be rushing closer but remained very far away. I awoke with my heart pounding, still feeling the terror of the experience. But it wasn’t the same as a terror born of fear. It was terror from uncertainty, exhilaration, and fear of the unknown. Not fear of an impending death.
What do I think of this dream? Several things come to mind based on experiences going on in my life. First … the New Year means new directions. But I’m not there, and I am not quite sure which way to go. But I am heading there at great speed! I have committed to exploring building a new house out at Perry Road. Just the preliminary design stage first and potential zoning variances. Greg Mason is working with me on this. He had begun working with Keith on potentially renovating the farmhouse but we gave up on that due to its extremely poor condition. I also began to peek at dating websites to see if there are any understanding widowers out there in my age range who are looking for an occasional companion for friendship, dinner, a movie, maybe other shared interests. I was discouraged. But Stassia is providing some advice in this new dating style that didn’t exist the last time I was dating back in high school… in the 70s!
Another point of note is that I was alone in the car – driver and passenger were both just me, alone. Keith was not there as he had been in my previous “driving” dream. And as I shot off into the air in my vehicle, I realized I was in this liminal space – between spaces. Between control and uncontrol, between heaven and earth, between now and future, ending and beginning. It is that space when you’ve lost the momentum of the direction you were heading, but haven’t begun to fall to the ground yet.
Other memories to consider…
And one last coincidence that might have a connection: My last night in the USA before flying to Fiji the next day with the family, I was on an elevated highway, I787 which wraps around the city of Albany, NY, the family’s plane tickets on the seat next to me, the kids waiting with Grandma at the Hilton. Just a mile from the hotel, I narrowly missed being killed by a wrong-way driver on the rush-hour holiday traffic-filled highway. Following behind a gasoline tanker in the right lane, I saw him swerve and hit his brakes, and I followed suit. But then I saw the wrong-way driver heading towards me and the vehicle to my left. The errant driver hit the small truck right beside me instead, killing him in a swirl of spinning vehicles, flying parts, and eventual fire. I braked hard with my car stopping only 50 feet from where some of the wreckage finally stopped spinning. Keith and his dad were about a mile behind me in his truck and didn’t know how close I’d come. But they were stuck in the traffic for another 3 hours while police and firetrucks came. I was interviewed by police and newspaper reporters both who took my film from my camera – once I’d realized I couldn’t do anything to help the man who was dead under his car, I grabbed my camera that still contained the “going away party” photos on a roll and started taking photos of the scene realizing that it would all have to be moved to make way for the emergency vehicles (the journalist in me).
Once the police gave me the go-ahead, I attempted to make my way to the hotel. The only exit was an on-ramp being used for the emergency vehicles. One came towards me lights and sirens going, and I stopped to the side again, shaking and beginning to cry. But I then started off again and made my way to the hotel. My mother-in-law and daughters were there, but Keith and his dad would be another 2 hours stuck in the traffic. When they finally arrived, they went on about the accident and I told them how close I was. It became clear it was not my time. The film loaned to the police and the newspaper was processed and returned to me the next morning before we left for our flight. That was August 30, 1991. Flying out on the 31st, we arrived in Fiji on 9/1/91, exactly 21 years to the day from when Keith would die on 9/1/12.
Symmetry and threads in the fabric of life
So there is symmetry in this story. In my dream, I am driving on an elevated highway that feels a lot like the one on I787. But I am the only car on the road. When we left for Fiji, we were leaving behind everything that was familiar to us, embarking on a journey that was new, exhilarating and frightening at the same time. And, when I was flying back from Russia last May, after cutting my trip short to be here with Keith when he got news from his liver biopsy, I remember trying to distract myself from thinking about why I was going home on this flight from Ekaterinburg to Moscow by snapping photos out the window of the abstract landscapes below. I still have these photos in hopes of creating new artwork from them.
I’m not sure of the meaning of all of this, but it seems obvious that I am at the start of a new and unknown journey. My psyche is frightened and a bit curious and excited, too. Like the threads that weave back and forth in a great tapestry, I seem to be heading back towards another destination, with details that sometimes echo of a previous path. I mentioned to my daughter that we had family who lived to their late 90s. So if I follow suit, I may have another 45 or more years to go, another lifetime ahead of me. It saddens me that I do it without Keith. But it also means I have another life to build. I hope to make it as fulfilling as the first half that I had the privilege to build with a very special and wonderful person.
Above: View from the Aeroflot flight from Ekaterinburg to Moscow, May 2012, after cutting the trip short to be with Keith.
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