Thursday, October 29, 2009

Anxieties

It's my last teaching day of the week. I've been sleeping very little the past few days, partially because I've been having odd anxiety dreams about money and other things.

I woke up this morning at 1:40AM after having a very vivid, post-apocalyptic dream. I was carrying my son, piggyback, while a tremendous pair of tidal waves was about to engulf the entire continent, caused by, of all things, a nuclear warhead. Much of the dream was me running through a runway strip of land as the curl of some breakers was about to crash into that small dry spot.

After, I couldn't get back to sleep. I was jacked up on adrenaline. I swear, I am my mother's son. She is the same way. A light sleeper. And like her, once I wake up from sleep, I have a hard time getting back to sleep. I contemplated grading but instead I read the 2009 Best American Short Stories--a story about a boy who was half human and half horse, and his parents who had gotten into an argument about his "deformity." Not exactly a good thing to read after bad dreams about parenting (if it was in fact a dream about parenting).

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And the truth is I worry about my future. For the longest time, I worried about my own writing and what will happen to my work. Not so much anymore. Most of my fears are financial and family-related. I suppose it's a sign that I'm growing up, yeah?

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Speaking of growing, my little guy, whom I dream about at night, is now saying "no" to things as he shakes his head. This is a development. At first, it was an event. It was something that was "cute." Sometimes it still is cute, but more and more he's asserting his displeasure. A myriad of things seem to displease him.

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One thing that displeases me greatly is this accursed 8AM teaching schedule. Thankfully it's a two-day-a-week schedule, but the commute is what kills. I have to be up by 5:45AM if I want to shower, eat, and prepare for my day. I've been counting the number of days left in the quarter. Thankfully that number is getting smaller and smaller: 6.

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Today, not so in love with the prose poem. Especially since I have to provide annotations for 20ish pieces.

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Current Spin:

Keren Ann. For Joseph.

2 comments:

RL said...

2 tidal waves=2 things creating a great deal of emotion (water usually stands for emotion in dreams), you're trying to avoid being swept away by the emotions (perhaps they are devastating) but you can only do that for so long, they're coming to getcha. You're carrying around a new masculine energy (a young, not fully developed one), it's precious, you're protective of it, you don't want it to be swept away by these powerful feelings.

Apocalypse=new beginning. They're terrifying because to get to a new cycle, things we know and are accustomed to have to be destroyed to make way for the new "thing." Sometimes what we cling to the most, is what we most need to let go of.

Dr. Reb

Oliver de la Paz said...

Thank you for the free reading! Right on target as ever, Reb.