Or Perhaps I’m Just Dreaming that I Do

Last night’s dreams impressed upon me that my life seems a fusion of too many different lives, the stages of my past lacking in continuity; imbued with consistent re-initiations; in modern colloquy, constantly rebooted establishing myriadly stark borders.

Too many lovers and too few loves, too many places, too many experiences out of the quotidian. Too complex, much too much complex to assimilate raising the question: “who then am I?”

Not that my life’s been terrible or more terrible than most. The reality is I’ve had a reasonably comfortable life, always bouncing back from adversity into an ever more positive setting so I’m not complaining, just observing, somewhat amazed that everything seems to have turned out as well as it has but mourning all the abandoned paths, the abandoned relationships, the fact that no matter where I am I’ll be longing to be in other places and wondering about the fate of people who’ve come and gone too quickly.

I see people who’ve maintained continuity in their lives, who live near where their families have always seemed to live and whose childhood friends are still their friends and wonder whether I should envy them or find solace in the rich variety of my life, always concluding that I can’t help but do both, and that perhaps, for someone to whom writing is a calling, the fact that my life is so full of source materials is a blessing, although some parts seem too melodramatic for credibility, evidently something of a family tradition.

I awoke overwhelmed pondering my dream. It was set in my distant past but encompassing various stages of my life, all involving times when I lived, first as a student and eventually as a faculty member at the old Otto Khan summer home now known as OHECA Castle, and then, as I lay in the twilight between waking and dreaming, I started listing in my mind all the places I’ve called home and the different people who made up those households and the different professions I exercised. As I fully woke it all became just too confusing, for some reason, refusing to quickly fade as most dreams are wont to do. And the more I pondered my dream, the more overwhelmed with confusion I became, as though I were still in a dream from which I couldn’t wake. One of those dreams where one knows one is dreaming but from which one just can’t escape.

So I went to my computer and started to write, as a therapeutic exercise, this being the result; and, as Gomez Addams of Addams family fame would sometimes reflect, “… I feel much better now”. Or perhaps I’m just dreaming that I do.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; all rights reserved