Dream Or Nightmare?

WARNING: This post comes with a BFEA - Big Fat Ego Alert. When you're single, who else is going to compliment your own self but your own self? Proceed at your own peril. You've been warned.

So I was having quite an adventure this morning right before I woke up. I dreamed that I was homeless in New England - a nod to my real-life homeless experience in 2005 in Portland, Maine in the dead of winter - but that's a story for another time. Fortunately, this dream took place in the late spring so everything was warm and green and lush. I was living (in the dream) in a vacant lot with all of my worldly possessions - boxes, furniture, everything because I couldn't afford to pay for storage.

A famous contralto heard about me and somehow tracked me down. She arrived at my vacant lot in a limo, got out and informed me that she had double-booked herself that afternoon and so had volunteered me to play my violin at one of the two weddings she'd agreed to perform for. I could have said "Get out of my face, you presumptuous creature, you got yourself into this, you can get yourself out of it", but instead I thought "Cool! A gig! Money!" and agreed to get her out of her bind. She proceeded to tell me the specifics - that the wedding was taking place at a posh lake resort several miles outside of town, that the bride wanted an originally composed piece for her processional and that everyone in the wedding party was expected to have purple hair with sideburns.

I proceeded to dye my hair in a gas station bathroom - the purple hair is a nod to real-life events in my granddaughter's life... she recently informed me over the phone that she and my daughter had dyed her hair purple and that it was "magical". I then meticulously styled my sideburns as required. This entire time I was finding the whole situation very amusing, laughing and joking with myself. I then dressed myself in a formal "performance" outfit with matching jewelry - another nod to real-life events here in New Mexico where I've been making lots of jewelry recently out of my lifelong collection of vintage beads and victorian/nouveau/deco cast metal pieces.

I had several homeless buddies who tended to hang around me - another nod to real-life events... not to be snotty but I tended to be slightly more articulate than many of the people I met on the street - not smarter, just more articulate - and was slightly more capable of finding food, clothing and shelter than they were so I helped them when I could to procure the services they needed. I'm lucky in that I could always manage to put a sentence together when I needed to so this worked out well for all of us.

Anyway, back to the dream... Once I was coifed and festooned, I proceeded to lead a procession on foot out of town. I didn't have a car and it was necessary to bring all of my stuff with me because I couldn't leave it behind to be stolen. I looked very much like a modern day Elvis-impersonating female Abraham with magical purple hair leading my people to the promised land. This was a nod to real-life events once again because the other night I was watching a really atrociously bad movie "In The Beginning" on TBN - the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Interesting station to say the least. This epic biblical tale was laced with b-movie actors, the costumes were hilarious, the makeup was hilarious, the acting even moreso, but I was learning some of the stories from the Old Testament which can't be a bad thing and besides, there wasn't anything else on worth watching. Martin Landau played Abraham btw. I never knew Abraham had a Brooklyn accent... one can learn so much about the bible from TBN!

So anyway, as we trudged along toward the wedding, "my people" furled out behind me for a good quarter of a mile. I imagined turning around to see camels carrying my stereo equipment. As we walked and laughed and sang, I was busily trying to compose a processional for the wedding in my mind... baroque? classical? pop balladesque? 415-A or 440-A? Yet another nod to real-life - I play baroque violin and it uses an entirely different tuning system than classical music. The entire scale is tuned lower, sharps are played flatter, flats are played sharper and vibrato is used exclusively as an ornament now and then as opposed to classical style in which vibrato is used almost constantly. My mind was spinning. Decisions decisions decisions. I figured once I got to the wedding I'd come out with my violin and ask the congregation if anyone played classical piano or baroque organ/harpsichord and would they mind coming up and improvising with me.

Just as we arrived at the posh lake resort and everything was about to come to a ceremonial climax, good or bad, one of my dogs awakened me by gacking something up next to my bed. I couldn't decide if I was frustrated or relieved. I really wanted to find out how this (mis)adventure turned out. Would it be a stunning joyous success? A dismal humiliating failure?

So... did I have a dream or a nightmare? As I laid there thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a nightmare. It easily could have been. But I was pleased that it illustrated to me how far I've come since my "crazy days" when this kind of impossible pressure would have sent me hurdling into a frantic panic attack. Instead, I remained frantically poised (if there is such a thing) and maintained my sense of humor and my presence of mind as I handled the situation with an awkward grace.

Throughout this whole egomaniacal other-worldly episode, I was very grateful to my homeless dream buddies for being so selfless and generous with their time and muscle. I was very grateful to myself for not flipping out. I was flattered that the famous contralto trusted me with the gig. I was grateful that I had a groovy outfit to wear. I was grateful for the experience. That's why I decided as I laid there that this wasn't a nightmare, it was dream. A very entertaining dream with a happy ending.