Tag Archives: dreams

Visiting the Dead…

by Robin Byrd

In my dreams the other night, I met my twin aunts. They were happy together; they were young again – just turned thirty – the age where I first took note of them and mother, who was thirty-two. I had wanted to make sure I remembered them as they were because they were getting old. They were no longer in their twenties. I was too young to know thirty is not old. They were laughing and asked me what I was doing there. “Visiting,” I said.

I am not sure why I dreamed of them. I will look into it further later. This is the second dream I’ve had in as many months where I was seeking out someone in a hidden place and being asked, “What are you doing here?” Again, I was visiting.

The places were nearly identical in that they were located in some sort of festival-like place, either underground or in a hidden realm. The atmosphere reminded me of the festivals we used to have in my school gymnasium when I was in grade school.

My biggest questions are: why am I visiting the dead, and why are they at festivals?

I am wondering if it has anything to do with my break from writing plays. While reworking some pieces, I have not started anything new outside of my deep inner process. Which, as I think on it more, may be where the dreams are coming from.

I am also wondering if it is time to shift back to writing plays again. Lately, I have been delving into alternative poetic styles of expression. I am also starting to lose interest in things other than story. I’m obsessed with research, knowing that the fodder will be used in something one day. I have got to get away. I need to get away lest I drown in an overabundance of stories cutting off my air, lest I bust due to the worlds growing within me fighting to be born.

Anticipating the many new branches growing from my tree of life, I am excited for the coming days. I look forward to many new birth dates and an answer to why I am visiting the dead in my dreams…

House of Cards…

by Robin Byrd

There have been earthquakes over here, shaking up my house of cards. Strange how they aren’t actually falling from their perches one upon the other, row upon row. Almost as if glued in place, they stand. Yet in the background, I can hear glass shattering from my past Northridge earthquake memories, leaving shards of glass on the bookshelf from the one broken item – my high school prom token.  The glass shattered from the sheer sound of the earth shifting.  The wine glass read, “Looks like we made it” from the Barry Manilow song by that name, it’s words lingering in the air:

Looks like we made it
Left each other on the way to another love
Looks like we made it
Or I thought so ’til today…

I kept the shattered token for months till I just couldn’t anymore.  It was like the shattering negated something – like it stopped it in motion and throwing it away would make it final…

The past is either haunting me or resurrecting the unfinished need-to-be-finished things.

And I wonder why the cards weren’t falling…

Wonder how much more before the dam breaks and the cards come toppling down on themselves?

I keep wondering if the quake was stopping a motion or restarting something this time…  if it’s a good, good or bad, bad vibration.

The heat is always sweltering before the quakes. I’ve been dehydrated for weeks.  Forgetting to drink water. Forgetting to eat. Passing out. Not so much from the heat of the day as the heat of the memories, feeling I became nothing of what I dreamed I would.  Feeling like sharded glass on a shelf. Hoping I will make it to another dream or the full awakening of an old one. Maybe that’s why the cards are still standing; we’re gonna make it this time, and Phyllis (Hyman) will be singing,

Old friend
This is where our happy ending begins
Yes, I’m sure this time that we’re gonna win
Welcome back into my life again

And my house, this house, stacked upon itself, will no longer be built of cards…