numbers, rooms & naughty child

I was inside an institutional building with many levels, staircases, rooms to sleep in, rooms to work from, rooms with books, classrooms, and rooms for sitting in and looking out. I had been inside the building for a long time and felt that I knew the maze of floors and rooms very well. A young woman, a world famous athlete, visited the building and I took it upon myself to show her around. I checked where she was going to be staying and we set out to look for the room. We walked down a long hall and I asked her the room number again – the number consisted of a letter followed by three numbers. As we continued checking the doors for the corresponding room number, I became confused as the doors were simply numbered with one, two and three digits. We walked up another level and again, I could not recall the room number that we were looking for. I had to ask her again. She then pointed out that the doors all had two room numbers: the official one, two and three digits numbers in neat white plastic numerals attached to the middle of each door, and then a second number written in untidy black pen, scrawled across the doors further down. These numbers were written in the same format as the number for which we were looking.

After leaving her at her room, I went off to find my own sleeping room and office. I climbed up the green carpeted stairs at a far corner of the building, travelling up several levels. I reached the top level but realised that I had taken a wrong turn as I was in a room that was not mine. I retreated down one flight of stairs and found that I had gone through a door identical to and directly next to the door I was meant to go through. I went through the correct door, up the twin green carpeted stairs and found myself at the top in my room. From my room, I could see a classroom of children sitting at desks, facing the front of the room where a poet was speaking to the group. It was soon to be my turn to speak to the group; I was to tell three dream stories and then recite a fourth dream. The class was a little disruptive, led by one particular boy who talked incessantly. When it was my turn, I walked up the centre aisle behind the children and began speaking from the back of the room. The noisy boy, seated on my left, continued to talk, and I stopped speaking, waiting for him to be quiet before I began again. He kept talking so I quietly said his name, my anger growing under the surface of calm.

After the class, I told him to stay back. He began to thrash against me, his arms and legs wildly swinging, threatening to hurt me. Still very angry but aware of not damaging him, I grabbed his arms around his wrists and his legs around his ankles, and held them altogether in one fist, occasionally having to readjust my grip as he wriggled free. I held him there, trapped, until he began to quiet. I didn’t let him go until he was sorry that he was rude and aggressive; until he realised that his behaviour wasn’t acceptable. I let him go though I still felt anger toward him. His wrists and ankles were a little red and immediately, he began to race around, talking to the other children that came back into the classroom, stirring up trouble.

grandparents' house & twin costume

I was showing some people through the house where my maternal grandparents lived when they were alive and where I spent so much time as a child. We went into the first spare room (which we called Number One Bedroom) where I used to sleep whenever I stayed there. Everything was very old: the carpet was threadbare, the wallpaper peeling and there was a general sense of age and decay. I led the people down the hall into my grandparents’ bedroom which was also old and yellowed; the floral carpet was worn and curled up at the edges. Lastly, we went into the back room (Number Two Bedroom) where my sister slept when she stayed overnight. This room was in the worst state: the walls were buckling and the rotting floor tilted away from the rest of the house. All of the rooms were empty. One person walked toward the far corner of the room and abruptly stopped as the floor creaked, threatening to give way. We all went back out to the lounge room and I felt the weight of age and memory upon me; my breathing was stifled and a certain melancholy stirred my being.

Next, I opened the door of a wooden wardrobe which was standing in the middle of the lounge room and I discovered a Siamese Twin costume that my friend C had let me borrow. It consisted of two dresses, much like private school uniforms, sewn together with a wide space at the hips where the twins were supposedly joined. (Joined at the hip!) I knew I had to give it back to her so I waited for her with the costume over my arm. The lounge room became a foyer leading to a huge auditorium where a show was about to begin. Various performers gathered in the foyer, preparing to go on stage. The show started and, still, I waited for C to arrive. Finally, she pulled up in her old grey car and emerged dressed in a long pale grey shimmering gown and an orange curling wig. Gliding through the foyer, she said hello to various people and went straight into the auditorium to perform. Another well-known performer, K, then appeared in the foyer, wearing a strikingly similar costume complete with curling locks of reddish hair. She welcomed me warmly. I knew that these two were true divas.

floating

I jumped out of an aeroplane and rocketed toward the earth. I observed the sky and the quilted landscape below. I wondered when to release the parachute, feeling very calm as I descended, slowing the fall to gentle drift at will.

Later, I was in a classroom, teaching a group of students that ranged in age from very young children, possibly four years old, to about sixty or so. I was handing out paintings that they had created earlier, explaining the grading system. The paintings were on butchers’ paper and incorporated a lot of gold metallic paint and glued on sequins. A teenage girl took a painting that was not hers and, for some reason, I allowed it. The group gathered at the side of the room, standing around in conversation. I was the only person not standing; I was, rather, sitting on a floating cushion shaped much like a peanut, hovering slightly above the heads of the group. I was appreciative of the seat, only wishing I could make it hover slightly lower so that I was in the group rather that above it. Regardless, I felt comfortable and could float across the room at will.

opportunity

I walked into the Metro Arts foyer to view some of my own artwork that was on exhibition there. SB, my friend and boss when I worked there, happened to be visiting as well. She had with her a respected art critic and encouraged me to show the critic my work. I raced upstairs into the main gallery to find a particular artist whose work was being exhibited there. I walked through her exhibition, marveling at the installation that took up the whole space. It was reminiscent of a snow field with ice tunnels and slopes and through which viewers needed to climb to get around the space. When I arrived back to the entry door, the artist was there. I sat down with her for a moment whilst she explained the work. SB appeared, asking me if I had told the artist to come down to see the art critic as well, and that there was little time. The artist and I went quickly downstairs to where my art was displayed in the foyer.

(I take this dream to mean that I am feeling the urgency of creating work whilst opportunities are open to me.)

lounge suite

B & I were asleep in bed. We woke and looked through the bedroom door out to the lounge room where, to our dismay, our new lounge suite was gone. Someone had come in during the night and stolen it, along with a few of the cushions. I looked around and couldn’t see anything else missing or disrupted. I went outside onto the balcony and looked down to the pool area. There was our lounge suite and the missing cushions, sitting on the pool floor, submerged under the water. I called out to B to come and see. We puzzled over who would come in, steal our couch and throw it in the pool, thinking that it must be someone with a grudge rather than any old robber. People began to mill around the pool and some of them went to take our cushions. I shouted out but my voice couldn’t carry over the distance and I watched as people walked away with them. We knew that the couch was ruined and that it would probably take a crane to lift our waterlogged lounge suite out of the pool.

film

I was walking through the Queen Street Mall with my maternal grandparents. The mall was quite empty of people but there was a film crew filming a scene of a movie. We walked quietly past, out of view of the cameras. The crew stopped filming and came to talk with us—they told us it was a film about (or by) the Australian artist and poet, Michael Leunig and that they needed to cast a part for a 16 year old run-away singer. My grandfather told them that I would be perfect for the part and that I was only 19. I laughed and told them that I was twenty years older than that but they seemed to think that with the right makeup and lighting, I could pull it off. (I was only around that age when my grandfather died so I would probably be only 19 or 20 in his eyes.) I started a three-month training program to get in shape for the role. B & I were throwing a big plastic garbage bag full of clothes to each other, as part of the fitness regime. Next, I remember sitting down to watch the film. We laughed as we watched the section where, as the 16 year old run-away singer, I sang a song called ‘Starlight’ from inside a bus, gazing out the window. They had given me braces and had a soft-focus lens on the camera to make me look younger. It was still a little dubious as to whether the transformation was convincing.

driving from the back seat

I am in the back of a car, on the left hand side—standing rather than sitting in front of the seat behind me. This is the side where I always sat as a child: my brother in the middle, my sister on the right, and me on the left. We are travelling along Park Avenue, one of the busiest roads in the suburb where I lived as a child. I am looking out the window at parkland, bush and the occasional house. I know that if I looked out the right-hand side window, I would see letterboxes of unusual shapes perched on curling chain stems, set in stone, or nailed into a fence. I become aware that I am the only person in the car, and that I am driving the car from my position in the back. I try to see the road ahead but my vision is partially obscured by the front seats. I can reach the steering wheel but have difficulty steering from this angle—my body is still faced toward the side window; only my head is facing forward. I wonder how I am going to stop the car or change gears; I am not really in control. A car veers out of line in the oncoming traffic, over onto my side of the road. I sound the horn and the driver looks cross. I motion to him that I am driving from the back seat and cannot change direction easily and he yells out, telling me that either I shouldn’t be driving or I should be in control of the car.

watches

I was getting ready for an occasion. I showered and dressed, although I felt somewhat underdressed in a flimsy frock and no shoes. I walked outside into a stone courtyard that was lined with boutique stores, and spied a Christian Dior shop with watches in the windows. I spent some time gazing through the glass and then went inside to look more closely at the watches which, I was surprised to discover, were very modestly priced. I was drawn to large square-faced watches set in silver with wide black leather bands. The store owner appeared and encouraged me to try them on. For some reason, I took my dress off and stood in a slip, barefoot on the stone floor. I also lifted the dress to reveal my underwear: a pair of beautiful lace bordered short style pants, which I admired for a moment in the mirror. The store owner brought me a particular watch to try on: a smaller round faced watch set in rose gold with some pink shell in the face, with a creamy leather band. I bought the watch, trusting the owner that this was the watch for me, and left the shop thinking that I had chosen a watch that was so different to the ones I liked when first entering the store.

flowers & the ocean

I was tending a flower bed. Irises, pansies and other flowers, all shades of the deepest blues and purples. I stroked the downy petals, voluminous petals of rose-like flowers that bloomed close to the earth. The soil was dark and rich and, as I looked, I noticed more flowers even deeper in colour, so blue and so purple that their beauty was almost unbearable.

Later, I was fatigued, so I was lying down while others continued their activity around me. I could hear the ocean behind a wall, the waves crashing on the shore. As I listened, I understood that the waves were growing bigger and I could sense that something, good or bad, was imminent.

illustration, name & redhead

I was illustrating and writing on a piece of beautiful paper that, as I paused to consider how to render the eyes of a creature, somehow slipped over the table and through a gap between the table and the wall. I looked under the furniture but couldn’t find the paper. I went down into the basement of the building—a vast cement floored space much like an underground car park—and continued the search. I looked through pages of a loose leafed book and found another illustration that I had done earlier: a graphite reckoning of a woman whose dress was made up of spiraling tapered shapes and whose hair was curled around her head like horns. I removed the page from the book, thinking that she would be an ideal figure for my book. I then searched through another box of papers, flicking through one page after another searching for the original illustration. Again, I found another earlier drawing of a surreal woman, her dress made up of fish. I took this page too, thinking that she may be the opposite or the twin queenly figure in the book. There was a room to the side of the open cement space where I noticed that many boxes were stacked. The building manager was inside the room with another man and I asked if I might look through the room as I was searching for a particular page. The building manager granted permission, although he also said that I did not need to seek permission, that the room was my own. I went through the boxes, finding interesting material but didn’t seem to find the original page. I saw that the building manager was taking a shower in another room off the basement space; I could see his wet legs and ankles below the door, the water spraying down and bouncing off the hard cement floor. I stood outside the bathroom and watched his legs and the water, feeling that perhaps I should not watch.

Next, I was in a large hall, waiting in line behind a registration desk. There were four women tending the desks, registering people for some kind of event. I wondered which woman to go to as there were no signs or directions but the fourth woman ushered me over to her desk where I told her my name. I heard the person next to me telling the third woman behind the desk her name, and it was the same name as mine. I realised that it did not matter which woman registered me as everyone shared my name or, perhaps, they were all me. One of the women behind the desks passed me a letter bearing my name which I opened and began to read; it was some kind of medical document. I realised that it was for the woman standing to my right, so I passed it to her. She thanked me but obviously wished that no one had opened her private mail. The fourth woman behind the desk then asked me if I was here to find B’s redheaded friend and I didn’t know what she meant.

Next, I was in an outdoor car park. I found my car and reversed out of the park. As I reversed, a woman crossed behind the car and I purposefully steered the car to nudge her slightly. I asked her if she wanted a lift. She asked me if I had been looking for her as she had been B’s friend, and I noticed that her hair was red in the sunlight. She was a big, shapely woman with an unusually sensual mouth. She, somewhat disjointedly, told me that they had known each other for a short time, emailing each other, and that someone was dead. I called B to clarify the story as it made little sense and she was very rattled, not understanding who it could have been or what she was saying.

mizu

I had a lovely Persian cat covered in soft sandy and chocolate fur. I also had a similarly coloured silky terrier called Mizu. I was inside a low-set, spacious homestead and I could see through the large windows to the grassy grounds outside. I loved both animals but lost them both and urgently searched for them inside the house. The cat appeared, slinking around the corner and winding her way around my ankles. I stopped to stroke her before continuing my search for the dog. I wandered outside in the gardens calling for the dog, singing out his name over and over.
Once awake, I checked the meaning of the word ‘mizu’: it is Japanese for water, representing the fluid things of the world, and emotional states such as adaptability and change.