Tag Archives: friend

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Stand up

I am in a large room, like an expensive hotel lobby. There is a large black bowl like structure, fountain size, but without a fountain. There is a big woman bullying me. She is making me dump containers of ice into the bowl structure. It will overflow and I will be blamed. Another woman whispers to me: “You have to sing a song about abuse, so that people will know that she is making you do this.” I know songs about abuse but at that moment I can’t think of any. Then I do. I remember a song my mother sang, this verse:

“Two little babies, crying for bread. With none to give them, don’t you wish that you were dead. Don’t you wish you were a single girl again.”

I wake up. The song is about a young woman, married, whose husband is drinking up his paycheck. She and the babies are starving and he beats them. Not a pretty picture of marriage, is it?

I wake up. One way to think about dreams is that each person in the dream represents an aspect of ourselves. So WHY is my inner bully showing up? I don’t like this!

That day my friend goes from the hospital to a nursing home for rehab. I speak to three people on the team, because my friend has a cardiology appointment the next day and I want to be sure that she will be taken to the visit. She is going to a nursing home 40 minutes away.

On the appointment day, I call the rehab just after 9 am when the internet says they open. There are three choices: two halls and a main office. I leave a message on hall one. I call back and leave a message on hall two. I wait another ten minutes and call the office. No answer, I leave a third message. I wait until 9:30 and call again. This time that inner voice with gumption is fired up: “I need a call back by 11:30 or I will drive up there, I need to know that my friend has transport to cardiology for her 12:45 appointment.”

I get a call back at 10:30. The rehab person introduces herself. “Oh, we can’t transport her because she just got here yesterday.”

“You don’t understand,” I say. “This visit is to make sure her heart is ok after restarting a medicine. It is not optional.”

“We can’t transport her.”

“I am sick, I can’t transport her. What is your name? What is your position? Who is in charge of the facility? What about her heart, your facility has no concerns if her heart is poisoned?”

“Just a moment.” Papers rattle. “Oh, we DO have transport arranged. Someone else wrote it down and I didn’t see it.”

“Oh, thank you so much. I was so worried!”

I go to the appointment, masked. The driver says my friend was a last minute addition. The visit goes well. I am on the tail end of a cold, not covid, and I am very tired from trying to be sure that my friend gets good care. I think THAT is what the dream is about, the inner strong voice who is not going to let my friend be abandoned, be bullied, be ignored. She is too ill to fight for herself so I am fighting for her. And I am formidable.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: gumption.

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The Extroverted Feeler and Barbie

With all the fuss over the Barbie Movie, I am thinking about Barbie. This takes place in the 1990s. I wrote it in 2018.

When my extroverted feeler son is four, he announces that he wants a Barbie for Christmas. Hmmm, I think.

I tell my mother. She sends him a Barbie. Blonde hair to her ankles and in an itsy bitsy blue glitter bikini. My son names her Pocahontas.

Back to work in January. On the first day back to daycare, my son is searching for something. “Mom?”

I am rushing around getting ready for work.

“Where is my backpack?” He has a small pink backpack with shiny gems pasted on it. We moved from Portland, Oregon to Alamosa, Colorado. All the kids in the Portland parent run daycare insisted on pink jelly sandals, both girls and boys. My son has stopped wearing pink immediately when he goes to the Colorado daycare.

I find the backpack. He stuffs the Barbie in headfirst, satisfied. Hmmm, I think. Taking Barbie to daycare. I take him to daycare and then stand and watch. He is working the room. He goes to a girl, says “Look!” and holds the backpack so she can see inside.

That evening I ask him. “Who did you show the Barbie to?”

“I showed it to Anna and Marni and Becka and Marie,” he says.

“Did you show the Barbie to any boys?”

“Mom!” he says with scorn. “You don’t show Barbies to boys!”

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The Barbie ambulance opens out into a clinic. Twin one, on the Get Real Girl’s lap, has bright red cheeks. Probably parvovirus. Twin two in the cradle has no rash. If I had worn heels like this Dr. Barbie while working, I would have never made it through a day!

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Rescue

A friend stops speaking to me. Nearly a year ago. I particularly mind because this person said, “We will always be friends, no matter what.” I am skeptical of always/never statements, but I want it to be true.

I run across him and he is in trouble. He has boxes, cases, six by four by six feet. Stuff he finds valuable, though it’s not anything I value. He is outside with the cases and is being threatened, told to hand them over.

It’s not a dramatic rescue. I just walk up and say “Hi,” to him. I am there, I am a witness, I look over my shoulder. There isn’t anyone else with me, but the implication is there. The threatening person leaves.

The former friend looks at me. “We’d better get the boxes inside,” I say, “Until you can move them.” We are by my house. “You can have upstairs and I’ll take the basement.” He looks uncomfortable, but he can’t leave his valuables on the street. “Or I will take upstairs and you the basement.” He still looks awkward. “Ok, or we can both be on the same floor, I don’t care.” He looks away. He says, “If we are on the same floor, I will want to kiss you.”

“Oh,” I say, and wake up. It’s a dream. It’s not him. It’s what my brain thinks he could/should be? Good luck with that.

Still, I decide that we should be on different floors. He has not spoken to me for a year and I don’t trust the friendship and certainly no kissing. I want him out of my house as soon as he can arrange transport for the four boxes. If he wants to renew the friendship then, he can contact me.

However, there is a shift in me. How odd that a dream can do that. I feel less upset about the whole thing. I like the version of him that my dream brought me, even though it isn’t real. It’s real in my dreams. Maybe that is enough. I feel more comfortable and happy.

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I took the photograph two days ago at Rialto Beach. The Hole in the Wall rock looks like a giant elephant. My daughter and I hiked the beach and camped for a night near by.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: karma.

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Snow globe full of lies

I took the bandage off today. I would really like to heal.
The scab between my breasts is bright hot angry red.
I gently scrub with soap and the scab slowly peels
showing the crater in my chest. I am the walking dead.
The small child wants so badly to believe your word is true.
You say you’ll be her friend forever no matter what.
My devil laughs, a cynic. My angel turns away from you.
When you walk away you drag behind each inch of my child’s gut.
I see the wound is pulsing and now I give a start.
You break your word, you lie, to my much abused small child.
The pulsing mass I see is my aching bleeding heart.
Every injury triples on the child you hold inside.
I don’t stop loving even though I am gravely hurt.
You’ve never loved at all: you grind hearts into the dirt.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: snow globe.

A world built of lies, like a snow globe. Detached from reality. Contained, with music, and you can shake it up. It looks so pretty, but it isn’t real.

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After the bear

I visited an old friend in Europe last March. I talked about the Olympic Peninsula and he was impressed with the cougars and orcas and bears. “We don’t have any large predators here.” Well, only humans.

They used to, though. This is from a local museum: a bear skeleton from about 7000 BC from the country. A very big bear fossil. There were other fossil predators including a wolf like creature.

So this is the succession where he lives: humans living after the bears.

What comes next?

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: succession.