Had one humdinger of a dream last night. It haunted me most of the morning until I realized what it meant. To start with, I went to bed dizzy. Not the my-feet-aren't-completely-on-the-floor kind of loosing balance but the effect when you turn your head and the vitreous fluid that surrounds the lobes continues to flow in direction of the turn. If I sit still I'm fine.
The dream had me at an event where there were different games and I was winning (which I never do), but I kept on thinking I needed to feed the dogs. I don't have dogs in the waking world, and essentially these weren't my dogs in the dream either, I was just responsible for them. I always made a point of feeding Sammy (my beastly bird) first thing in the morning, and I remembered in the dream that I did that. Days were quick in the dream, and each day I would remind myself to feed the dogs. Even wondering at one point if they were even still alive considering how long it had been since I fed them.
The final game happened and I tied for first. It was this game where I had to roll a bocce sized ball on a U-shaped track with my left hand, catch it with my right and then shoot it over to my left and send it on the track again. The one who make the loop the most wins that bout. I was able to do it fifteen times before time was called, the guy I was competing with did the same. I wanted the big plastic bag of sea shells and plastic dinnerware and I gave him the trophy, it wasn't that important to me.
I found my family on the beach, walking with the two girls that were refereeing the game, they were heading in the same direction. They were doing this for college credit and were amazed that I wasn't a college student too, as if only college kids could play games or were supposed to play games, I don't know. We talked about the dogs and I realized, again, I hadn't fed them.
With the magic of dreams I was at the house I grew up in, the one place that I still think of as home, and I saw the dogs. One was my sisters deceased 16 year old Australian cattle dog and then my nephews Peke named Gratch. Though I recognized Gratch as Gratch it didn't look like his dog. It was completely shaved, including the mohawk, bigger and more brown than cream as his little pooch was and completely emaciated. Shaunzie, Sandy's dog wasn't as bad off. Joey was there, feeding Gratch, rubbing salt in my already wounded heart for neglecting these little animals. Not mean, but well intended berating of sorts. Gratch filled out after one bowl of table scraps and dog food, while Shaunzie really didn't need anything. Neither of the dogs wanted anything to do with me.
It startled me, because, even though I've been a neglectful pet owner in the past (like decades in the past when I was still a kid) I would never do anything like that, consciously starve an animal until I could see their ribs. I've had tug-o-minds with a dog that refused to eat cheap dog food, but I always made sure he ate. (he won by the way, he got the good stuff in the end. Cheeky beast.) That's why it stuck with me so long today, the neglect, the absent mindedness, it's just so not me these days when it comes to living creatures and humans.
Then it dawned on me....
The dogs aren't dogs, they are my creative projects. Clarissa Pinkola Estes talked about dreams in her "Women Who Run With Wolves" book. It's an excellent read if anyone is looking for a chance to see themselves differently and to get a little more comfortable in their own creative skin. Shaunzie represents the book that's finished. It could use a little more work on the end, but I'll wait for an editor to help me through it. It ended where it ended, and that's normally where I make my end, whether it makes sense or not. The starving, smaller one is Gratch. The work in progress. The characters haven't spoken to me in a long time, not since I wrote Purple People Eater and it's like they are always in the back of my mind that they need to be fed, but I never feed them because they won't have anything to do with me. I guess my subconscious is tired of having to do all the character-husbandry and wants me to kick in again and get back to the keyboard and edit the monster down to a more comfortable book. To put it on par with the dream, editing down to me is like wandering through a yard with a shovel to pick up the piles left behind by dogs. It's hard, smelly, dirty work. But it's got to get done. That's not saying my story is poo, I personally enjoy the characters when they fat and happily fed, it's just the work of weeding out the verbose from the sublime.
I guess it's time to let the dogs out......
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