I lost my mother last night. Not literally.
I rarely dream lengthy dreams, rarely remember my dreams, and almost never have a dream that can probably be found in a dream interpretation book. But this dream was different.
I had gone with Jeri, Walt, Walt's (deceased) mother, and a guy who looked like our friend Liam, but wasn't our friend Liam (I never did figure out who he was).
Jeri and I left the others in the Atria lobby while we went off to her apartment, but when we got there, it was empty and her bed was gone. There was someone in there cleaning up and a sign on the door saying it was being renovated.
But where was my mother? At one point in the dream I was in tears, thinking of her being dead.
The rest of the lengthy dream consisted of my trying to find someone...anyone...who could tell me where my mother was and why she was not in her room. Everyone I asked either didn't know who she was or had no idea where she was.
Finally someone told me she was "at Podiatry," which confused me because while she needs a pedicure, there was nothing else wrong with her feet, so why would she be taken to Podiatry? Someone finally gave me directions to get to Podiatry, which seems to have been in downtown San Francisco. The dream ended with my getting lost several times trying to find the office. I never did find my mother.
It doesn't take a professional dream interpreter to figure the dream out. While I haven't "lost" my mother literally, she gets farther and farther away and harder and harder to reach.
When I last went to Atria, I found her, sitting alone in the otherwise empty dining room, sitting at a table for two, head down on her chest, sound asleep. I sat down across from her and watched her for awhile. A noise in the kitchen startled her and she opened her eyes a bit and I talked to her. She didn't respond and went back to sleep until another noise woke her again and I was a bit more forceful in talking with her.
She said she needed to lie down, so I got her up and walked her to her apartment. I noticed that she was using that "old lady shuffle" (which was odd because when I watched the aide walking her down to the door last week when I was taking her to the doctor, I noted that she walked better than I do). She held on to me for dear life and at one point she said "There's something I've been meaning to ask you, but I keep forgetting." I asked what it was and she said "how's your mother?" I said "you mean how is YOUR mother?" and she said "No YOUR mother." When I told her that she was my mother, she didn't believe me. I don't know who I was that day.
When we got to the apartment she climbed into her bed and when I said I would leave, she said "I'm listening to you, but I just need to lie down." Of course she was asleep in minutes
I stayed for awhile, wondering if she would wake up or not, and she didn't, so I quietly left.
I hate what is happening...to me. I am starting to...I won't say resent, but postpone going to visit her. It's so depressing. And though she is always delighted to see me (whoever she thinks I am) I know that by the time I have left, she has already forgotten I was ever there, so it doesn't matter whether I'm there every day, or once a week. I think. I rationalize.
I don't know if it is a cause-effect sort of thing, but she has started "roaming." I rarely find her in her apartment any more and I often have to send an aide to search for her. Often she will start talking to me and then get up and leave the apartment again, leaving me sitting there.
So it is understandable that I would have a long dream about losing my mother and spending a long time trying to find her again. It is probably a reflection of my guilt over postponing visiting her so often.
We had a quiet weekend, only one show to review. This was one I was not reviewing for Davis, but for Sacramento. Sacramento reviews are a maximum of 275 words where Davis reviews are around 750. Sometimes the shorter reviews are more difficult to write because there is so much to say, and so little room.
That was not the case this time. There were good parts to the show, and not good parts to the show, and given that there were only five people in the audience (the cast outnumbered us), I wrote about the good points and ignored the not-good. The Sacramento paper gives stars (the Davis paper does not) on a scale of 1-4. If they had half stars, I would have rated it 2-1/2 because it was better than 2 but not really a 3, but to encourage people to come and see it, I went for 3 instead of 2.
In my first months of reviewing, 18 years ago, I rated a show 1 and the big shot Sacramento paper critic gave it a 4. I wrote to ask him what he saw that I didn't and he got very huffy and said that it was more important to encourage the theater to perform shows such as that one than criticize the bad points. So I guess that's kind of why I gave this show a 3. And I hope they improve to earn that 1/2 star I gave them for free!
I rarely dream lengthy dreams, rarely remember my dreams, and almost never have a dream that can probably be found in a dream interpretation book. But this dream was different.
I had gone with Jeri, Walt, Walt's (deceased) mother, and a guy who looked like our friend Liam, but wasn't our friend Liam (I never did figure out who he was).
Jeri and I left the others in the Atria lobby while we went off to her apartment, but when we got there, it was empty and her bed was gone. There was someone in there cleaning up and a sign on the door saying it was being renovated.
But where was my mother? At one point in the dream I was in tears, thinking of her being dead.
The rest of the lengthy dream consisted of my trying to find someone...anyone...who could tell me where my mother was and why she was not in her room. Everyone I asked either didn't know who she was or had no idea where she was.
Finally someone told me she was "at Podiatry," which confused me because while she needs a pedicure, there was nothing else wrong with her feet, so why would she be taken to Podiatry? Someone finally gave me directions to get to Podiatry, which seems to have been in downtown San Francisco. The dream ended with my getting lost several times trying to find the office. I never did find my mother.
It doesn't take a professional dream interpreter to figure the dream out. While I haven't "lost" my mother literally, she gets farther and farther away and harder and harder to reach.
When I last went to Atria, I found her, sitting alone in the otherwise empty dining room, sitting at a table for two, head down on her chest, sound asleep. I sat down across from her and watched her for awhile. A noise in the kitchen startled her and she opened her eyes a bit and I talked to her. She didn't respond and went back to sleep until another noise woke her again and I was a bit more forceful in talking with her.
She said she needed to lie down, so I got her up and walked her to her apartment. I noticed that she was using that "old lady shuffle" (which was odd because when I watched the aide walking her down to the door last week when I was taking her to the doctor, I noted that she walked better than I do). She held on to me for dear life and at one point she said "There's something I've been meaning to ask you, but I keep forgetting." I asked what it was and she said "how's your mother?" I said "you mean how is YOUR mother?" and she said "No YOUR mother." When I told her that she was my mother, she didn't believe me. I don't know who I was that day.
When we got to the apartment she climbed into her bed and when I said I would leave, she said "I'm listening to you, but I just need to lie down." Of course she was asleep in minutes
I stayed for awhile, wondering if she would wake up or not, and she didn't, so I quietly left.
I hate what is happening...to me. I am starting to...I won't say resent, but postpone going to visit her. It's so depressing. And though she is always delighted to see me (whoever she thinks I am) I know that by the time I have left, she has already forgotten I was ever there, so it doesn't matter whether I'm there every day, or once a week. I think. I rationalize.
I don't know if it is a cause-effect sort of thing, but she has started "roaming." I rarely find her in her apartment any more and I often have to send an aide to search for her. Often she will start talking to me and then get up and leave the apartment again, leaving me sitting there.
So it is understandable that I would have a long dream about losing my mother and spending a long time trying to find her again. It is probably a reflection of my guilt over postponing visiting her so often.
We had a quiet weekend, only one show to review. This was one I was not reviewing for Davis, but for Sacramento. Sacramento reviews are a maximum of 275 words where Davis reviews are around 750. Sometimes the shorter reviews are more difficult to write because there is so much to say, and so little room.
That was not the case this time. There were good parts to the show, and not good parts to the show, and given that there were only five people in the audience (the cast outnumbered us), I wrote about the good points and ignored the not-good. The Sacramento paper gives stars (the Davis paper does not) on a scale of 1-4. If they had half stars, I would have rated it 2-1/2 because it was better than 2 but not really a 3, but to encourage people to come and see it, I went for 3 instead of 2.
In my first months of reviewing, 18 years ago, I rated a show 1 and the big shot Sacramento paper critic gave it a 4. I wrote to ask him what he saw that I didn't and he got very huffy and said that it was more important to encourage the theater to perform shows such as that one than criticize the bad points. So I guess that's kind of why I gave this show a 3. And I hope they improve to earn that 1/2 star I gave them for free!
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