Dream: “Mary Seeking Freedom, Part I”

By Ohrkid

In the beginning of my dream, I had to slip down five levels (like stories, only larger) on an enormous inflated white plastic slide to get here, to Red Pine Camp. I was coming back for the summer to work. As I slid down the enormous slide (one of many all in a row), there were entire cities on each level that I was passing through, which I could see from a distance. People in business suits with briefcases, looking forward, looking at nothing, heads into the wind.

Before I got on the slide, I was moseying around an abandoned churchground. In no hurry to be anywhere, enjoying the lazy, quiet, sunshiney feeling of the day, and the sound of insects. I was walking through the grass on the way to investigate the very old stone church at the edge of the mountaintop, near the trees, when I looked up and saw people on metal ski lifts (red accents.) One man was hanging upside down by his knees; he looked athletic and playful, like a high schooler on his day off. He was using his phone while upside down.

Someone walking by (an old man in a checked shirt, brown belt, and slacks), noticed my curiosity and explained. He called them zip lines. He said northern Wisconsin had become a good place for celebrities to hide and be unknown. Like back in the days of those famous criminals (such as Capone and Dillinger). I feel a kind of yearning to interact with them, to know them personally. But they are way up there. And where will they end up when they’re off that ride?

Now, after sliding down the slide, I’m at camp. I go to the bathroom in this cabin/lodge-style building, and find a tiny complex silver triangle hanging on the back of the wooden door. I marvel at the instrument. I want to play it, but where is the wand? I have no time, as the boss (Mrs. Wittencamp) is going to come interrupt me. I think about the lack of access to instruments and opportunities to play (with) music I had as a child, and how much I yearned for that. I feel the echo of that wound now, as in this instant I still feel that faraway feeling of not being “one of the people” who gets to play instruments. That it’s a special kind and I’m not native to that group. I think maybe the wand is part of the triangle itself—I reach to investigate…

Then something about my environment changes. I walk into a room with lots of fresh air and sunlight, one you could walk right out of onto a patio. Mary is there, holding her toddler (little boy, blonde.) When she sees me, she looks deeply into my eyes and says, with intense feeling, “I need a break.” I say, ‘of course,’ meaning I will watch her boy for a while. He is sleeping, which is a relief because I find toddlers difficult when awake. I walk to the door (one whole side of the room is floor to ceiling glass doors) and see her walking off through a green field to where there are trees—and through the breaks in the trees—sunlight. I sense clearly that there is water behind them, which Mary, in her freedom, is seeking.

She took a joint with her. When she comes back, she is totally relaxed, and laughing. She has been undeniably freed by her break. She lies on the bed and gets into the happy baby yoga pose, still smoking. Her sweatpants are creamy orange. There is a friend with her now. They both do happy baby pose and laugh.

I remember, during the time she was away and I watched her walk into the forest, how I was subtly feeling trapped inside. By both meanings of the word, inside: as in, in the house, but also, trapped by my own self, by my own choices, by my own resistance to leaving. Yearning for nature, but afraid of it. Afraid of being uncomfortable. Of waking the child.

The sun sets as she goes.