Saturday, April 29, 2006
Last Saturday, at the flea market, I had bought a hiking stick made from a hardwood sapling (mentioned in the April 22 entry). The top of the stick is the root knot which has been fashioned into an ugly beasty with googly eyes and a mouthful of real deer teeth. The guy who made it said its name is "Tooky".
The stick is almost 6 feet tall and the root knot is heavy, so to balance it for my grip, I'm going to have to shorten the stick by about a foot, so that when I hold it just below Tooky's head, my hand will be just below my shoulder level. I want to take it with me to Ricketts Glen.
Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that Jay decided to shorten Tooky for me, but he didn't talk to me about it first. He came up from the basement with the stick, all pleased with what he'd done. He had cut too much off. He had shortened it to medical cane length -- Tooky's head was at hip level on me. I got very upset. No so much angry as frantic to think of some way to fix it, to make it long again. I ran through all the possibilities in my mind, glue, pegs, wrapped splints, added pipe, and as I had to reject each possibility as ugly or not strong enough, I got more and more upset. I awoke exactly at 3 am, in a panic, gasping for breath.
The big thing about Tooky is that he is absolutely unique. He's so ugly he's cute. There isn't and won't ever be another exactly like him.
I feel almost like it was a message. In life, Jay would never have done anything like that. He would absolutely have confirmed the length with me. So his having done something so uncharacteristic seems significant. Why does my mind have Jay doing it, as opposed to MY cutting it too short by mistake? Something else that strikes me is that, in my experience, Roman almost always wakes up and goes to the bathroom, or the kitchen for water, or gets on the computer, at 3 am. I don't see the connection, but I have a strong feeling it's there.
The dream must mean something. When I was driving to the grocery store this morning, I found myself still trying to find some way to fix Tooky (who, by the way, is still uncut and still tall, and doesn't need fixing). Whatever the REAL problem is, it's still there and unresolved.
2 comments:
Okay, I have a couple ideas about this but of course you'll take them with a grain of salt as I've never met you. Still, I get to look at your thoughts on a daily basis so I interpret just what I hear straight from the source, right?
Maybe the stick is representative of the love you require, which you aren't getting from Roman. You accept what attention he does give you as a consolation prize when what you really want is the whole thing. In fact he is even kind of a jerk sometimes (that comment about knowing what the consequences would be if he didn't hang out with you was just rude), and you know you're better than to stand for that. What's going on between the two of you isn't a compromise; it's on his terms.
I think the Jay in your dream wasn't Jay but the Jay-like person you wish Roman could be. Roman just isn't. He cut something down to a size that isn't acceptable to you, without your input or consent, and now it can't be what you intended it to be. There's no way to put it back to the length you want.
"I ran through all the possibilities in my mind, glue, pegs, wrapped splints, added pipe, and as I had to reject each possibility as ugly or not strong enough, I got more and more upset."
So the unresolved question seems to be this: What do you do with that stick now? Is it worth hanging onto? Can you find some other use for it? Do you throw it away and move on?
Lucie, beautiful! Everything you said is absolutely correct, and as far as the dream is concerned, probably right on the money. Not sure yet. But when I was thinking about it while driving into town, I decided that the best solution would be to cut Tooky's head off and attach it to another strong stick.
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