Tag Archives: RDP

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dream about privilege, access, and water

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dream.

I dream in technicolor with smells, sensations, sounds, all senses. So much so that sometimes I worry about what is happening in the dream and what I should do about it. Then I realize it is a dream.

Other times I know right away that it’s a dream. This one I knew was a dream and it’s closely connected to our reality.

This dream is from August 2018.

I am in a library. There is an archive. I am not allowed in the archive.

There is a man. He listens to me sometimes, but mostly he prefers that I listen to him. He listens less and less as time goes on. He is interested in certain topics, but he likes to do the talking. He doesn’t like or agree with my opinions and prefers that I am silent.

A woman arrives. She is very powerful. Dressed in white, robes, goddess like. She is as tall as the man. They talk and he goes into the archives with her. I am jealous and resigned. Not sexually, but I am just resigned to males coming first, more of them have access to the archives, they expect the attention first, they are rewarded for speaking up where I would be punished for the same behavior. I am sick of it.

I have a question for the woman. I wait. I am sitting on a tall stool with a long desk. There are two chairs to my left, empty, and people in the chairs to my right. There is a carved wooden screen walling the other side of the desk off: on the other side are the archives.

I have water. The water is in a bowl. It is to drink and is nourishing and refreshing and it is beautiful too, with herbs and an island of moss in the center. I have drunk enough, and wash my hands in the remaining water.

They come out of the archive. The woman sits by me and the man next to her. I ask my question when there is an opening. She is interested and will take me into the archives. The man is not interested in my questions, as usual, and he leaves. The woman asks for some of the water. I explain that I have washed my hands in it. More people are coming to talk to her. She pours some into her bowl. I am afraid she will be distracted by the people and drink it. I go to get her clean water. I need a pitcher. There is a wall of glass front cupboards with many sizes and shapes of glasses. I get down a large one, but it is very ornate and delicate. I want a plain pitcher but I also want to bring her the water right away. I hesitate, looking for something large and plain.

I wake up.




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squat

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: squat.

What comes to mind is Taj Mahal’s Squat that Rabbit, a song that always makes me want to dance!

I also want to know what it means. There’s a rather nice discussion at mudcat.org.

The photograph is from the Kinetic Sculpture Festival. And here’s a bonus… Squat that Octopus.


person dressed as octopus
squat that octopus
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family fishing

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: putrescent.

But it’s a family! Fishing! Our local five otter family, that I’ve seen before, pictures here and here. I can’t tell who is an adult and who is a child now, they are all pretty much the same size. They were swimming along and catching fish, heads tilted up to eat when they surfaced.

These are river otters, even though they are fishing in the Salish Sea.Β 

And why putrescent? Oh, they are delightful to watch, but they can leave some very putrescent gifts on the dock or in the boats….

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sing

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sing.

Sing! This photo if from my birthday, some years ago. My father is the seated guitar player. He is gone and so is Andy Makie, standing.

Andy brought music to everyone he could in his last decade. Here is an article: Why music? He talks about it here and another version here. My daughter was in a classroom that received a box of his strumsticks and lessons in second grade and for a while he lived in a trailer on my father’s land and built the strumsticks in my father’s barn.

My father, Malcolm Ottaway, loved both classical and folk music. He was one of the people who started Rainshadow Chorale and I got to sing with him in it for 13 years.

This party was like my parents’ parties: a music party. Bring an instrument. Our age range was under 2 to 70s and everyone made joyful noise at some point. My son led the high school Chamber Orchestra to play too.

  • Port Townsend High School Chamber Orchestra


Townsends
players