grown ups are like that....

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Neverland

Last night I dreamed of Italy. I was sitting in a small movie house watching a Fellini film while a rickety fan buzzed in front of an open window. Later, after the movie, I walked back to the small room I was renting on the second floor of a crumbling stone building in Rome.

I've never actually been to Italy.
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Last week, my dreams also brought me to Scotland.

It was nothing more than a small bit of land, really, surrounded by azure waters and covered in palm trees. It seemed more like a tropical paradise than the crisp, Celtic isle of lore. I drove around its perimeter several times in a sporty convertible with a girlfriend who has been absent from my life for years now.


I have never been to Scotland, either.
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Once I dreamed of riding a train through a forest in Thailand. I ate spicy bowls of soup as I watched the lush greenery of the forest pass by in a blur. My sleeping car rocked back and forth as the train lumbered on towards an unknown destination.

I've never traveled to any part of Asia much less to Thailand.

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I don't know why I dream of these far off places that I have never been to. Perhaps it is because the day to day dullness of the upstate winters wear me down and leave me hungry for something more, something different. Or maybe it is because I know that I will never actually visit these places in real life so my mind tries to comfort me somehow by creating these clear, colorful, almost lucid, night time dream trips.

I usually awake excited as I recall the details of one of my never-journeys. But the excitement always quickly fades and is replaced by a steely bitterness as I hear the scrape of the snow plow, and I realize where I really am.

9 comments:

Beck said...

Want me to make you feel a bit better?
I've never been out of CANADA.
I've only been out of the province ONCE.
I haven't been to Toronto in ELEVEN YEARS.
Feel better?

InTheFastLane said...

When you go, I will go with you...There are things I LOVE, when I compare them to the overcrowded mess of California. And then, they is the boring flat sameness of a looooong winter.

Ché / Emblem said...

Nice! They sound like peaceful, happy dreams.

Unknown said...

Perhaps...better Neverland...than never at all? The brain is somehow magical in its slumber sometimes :)

cyb said...

chrissy...there are people who have been all over the freakin world, yet have no more sense of it to show for all their traveling around. i really think it's about finding depth in experience, letting yourself be open, emotionally honest in the middle of whereever you find yourself, expectedly or unexpectedly. i think this is what makes you write so compellingly. and it is also what makes you such a special person to be around.

Hilarie Mae said...

I love that dreams allow us to go to new places and collect new experiences. I feel like I accomplish a great deal of fun while I sleep. But waking up to the icy cold of Western NY is always a disappointment.

flutter said...

sounds like it is time to give in to your wanderlust

CraffingOutLoud said...

I think it is amazing that your dreams take you to so many far-off places! Mine are usually set in my chilhood home or in some nondescript office.

Beautiful, evocative writing as always!

Rosa Davila said...

Dear Christine!
My mum never in the wildest of her dreams envisioned herself anywhere other than her home town. Yet, she has been traveled through Italy, visited London, travelled through Morocco and visited us here in NY all in her fifties and sixties. Goes to say that you should never say never. If you really really want to travel the Universe will give you the opportunity. It helps to want it badly!!