We are the Dreamworld

Sunday, 24 July 2011

During that state of half awake/half asleep that I always experience during mornings when I stay in bed late, I had dream that was unique in its detail.

For no apparent reason, I was suddenly in the home my grandparents’ owned in the 1980s. They lived there for about nine years and, during that time, my immediate family and I lived there with them for about two months. It was an A-frame house, with a high, peaked ceiling in the center and steeply sloping walls on the side.

For some reason I was there with many of my relatives. I was my present age, but most everyone else was the age they were years ago.

In the large dining room, my grandparents had a big, heavy table. One of my uncles was sitting at the table. So was my mom and my sister. Jennifer was there, too, standing off to the side with Owen. My grandfather was not there, thought I didn’t notice this until after I woke up and thought about the dream.

When I lived there, they kept an old comfy chair in the corner of that room but in my dream, the chair was replaced by a large-screen TV. I was standing near the TV, watching what was on screen. And guess what was on screen? Well, you’ll never guess, so I’ll just tell you.

It was the music video to “We Are the World.” You know, the one where all the celebrities are in a big room, swaying back and forth, swapping turns at the microphones, and holding hands like they’re all best friends. (And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, CLICK HERE.)

My dream came into focus right at the fifty-second mark, when Kenny Rogers says “We can’t go on / pretending day by day,” then James Ingram finishes by saying, “that someone, somewhere/ will soon make a change.” In my brain (which does not have this song memorized), my dream then moved right on to the two-minute mark of the video, when Willie Nelson delivers the most faith-based line of the song: “As God has shown us/by turning stone to bread.”

So while I was standing there watching this video, my grandma and Isla were standing directly in front of the TV singing along and swaying to the music. Isla was standing right at my grandma’s feet, kind of leaning on my grandma’s legs to steady herself. My Grandma had a hand on Isla’s shoulder to hold her there. This is pretty much the stage Isla is at in real life: She can stand very well, especially if she’s supported somehow, and she likes to look at the TV and to sway back and forth whenever there’s any sort of music playing.

My grandma was holding something in her hand, which I believe was a microphone. It was as if she and Isla were doing karaoke. Which, in a way, is weird, because I can’t really see my grandma ever singing like that, and I don’t think she’s ever owned a karaoke set-up.

Anyway, I remember thinking that I was happy that Isla got to meet her great-grandma. But only in my dream, of course. In reality, Isla’s and her great-grandma’s lives have overlapped by nearly a year now, and they have never been in contact with one another.