(un)consciousness

i have been having awful dreams about little m. so awful i tell erk just to get them out of my system, but then never think about or mention them again. even when i am awake i worry about all the horrible things that can go wrong. what if i fall down the stairs while holding her?

already i am trying to find an equilibrium between keeping her safe and me sane. i have this unbearable urge to hold her in my arms and never ever let go (although this urge might not be as much about keeping her safe, as it is about finding her so delicious and irresistible.)

slowly we are learning to strike that balance.  she no longer falls asleep in my arms, but rather, lying solo in her crib. she has also begun to sleep in her own room through the night rather than beside our bed (although, my favorite time of day is still when she wakes up at 5am and i bring her to bed with us to feed her and snuggle her back to sleep.)

i am reminded once again of the umbilical cord,  and how many times it must be cut and re-cut through our lives. while little m no longer physically lives inside my body, sometimes i feel as though she does, like the phantom pain of an amputee. despite having become a separate being she still relies on my body for food, and therefore survival, and i suppose in some way that feeling appears to be mutual. but with every amazing development, comes more separation. and just as birth itself is an incredible joy, it is also an unbelievable trauma.

amazing how such a little person can break your heart while simultaneously making it whole for what seems to be the very first time.

become your dream

  

i have been thinking about this phrase a lot lately. in reading about other people's struggles to recognize where the limits of their dreams and their reality lie, and thinking about those same limits within my own life, this image kept popping into my head. sometimes the problem is not becoming your dream, but recognizing that you have already become it - or allowing your dream to change. 

on a completely different note - i have been having strange dreams lately. but i will write about that later...

classy

i dreamt that arnold schwarzenegger passed me on the street and commented, "classy" referring to my outfit.
i asked him, "which part?"
and he nodded toward my feet and said, "your sneakers." and then added, "i didn't think sneakers could be classy, but they are"
thanks arnold

feelings and teeth

people say that dreaming about teeth hold a lot of symbolic value. indeed, one of my recurring nightmares a few years ago was that my teeth were clamped shut and i could not open my mouth to speak. This caused a lot of anxiety and i would wake up in a cold sweat. needless to say, i have always hated going to the dentist.

something about the taste of the rubber gloves in my mouth, the screeching sound of the water pick, and the awful, dry sensation of that suction tube don't help my already emotionally fragile mouth. but i had to go the other day because it had been over a year since i had had a cleaning and i have been experiencing some tooth aches. new dentist.

good news:
no cavities
those marks on my teeth were not permanent stains (i've just been drinking more coffee as of late)
i didn't cry while the hygienist cleaned my teeth (i did at the last dentist's office i went to)

place caption here:

between states

when i was in college i made a dance called "collective unconscious". i was interested in psychology - had considered majoring in it (along with a dozen other things that i didn't pursue) and had been reading a couple of books by jung and freud at the time. i was fascinated by the idea that there were things we didn't know we knew - locked away under a layer of this thing called consciousness. even more fascinated still in this idea that the unconscious state was one we shared with others. connecting with people in a way that we could not do otherwise.

What is equally interesting to me is the transition from dreaming into waking from your dream- straddling the two worlds gives you access to both. the overlap is so brief but feels like a burst of enlightenment or something.

i fell asleep on the train this morning. while i don't remember what it was that i was dreaming about, i remember hearing someone saying "excuse me" to someone (not me) over and over again. i wondered why the words kept being repeated. it wasn't until i opened my eyes that i realized it was in fact precisely at me that the woman one seat over was directing her "excuse me". She was trying to get off the train and i was in her way.

buenas noches

i just had a quick review of saludos and despedidas (greetings and farewells) with my students this week.

grammatically easy in spanish.

conceptually hard in every language.

broken mirrors

i had two dreams last night. both caused a great deal of stress. they both also involved mirrors.

back to school

i remember as a kid having those classic "back to school" anxiety dreams about showing up to class late, or after it had already ended, or even without any clothes on. i was sure that when my life as a student ended so would these particular dreams. it turns out that they don't just end. in fact, they worsen as a teacher.