Hostel Dream

I have this dream repeatedly about arriving in a city, staying at this one hostel (recognizing that I won't be able to stay more than a night or two) and then getting stuck seeking out a hostel in the city.
I just had it.  But it had changed too.

Normally I am alone when I arrive. Normally I am alone in my struggle to find a place. It always works out and I enjoy the city (which I have come to enjoy more and more with each dream)...

This time I arrived with a group, but recognized that they were already staying somewhere else... I went to my normal place. (It didn't look the same as it does in other dreams), but I still felt the familiarity of knowing it. Knowing the guy who owns it. Knowing he is a bit miserly, very opinionated, but also just loving the atmosphere. I stayed there soaking it in. Conversation were struck up about travel and the state of the world.
It came time to leave and I knew I still needed to find something. The guy wanted to help me. He didn't know me from the next traveler, but as I talked things out with him, he came to understand that this was like the 4th of 5th time I'd come to his place and to this city (which isn't a real place or a real city as far as I know). It was a series of interactions with him giving me advice on where to stay, then walking away to attend something, then me tracking him down to get more information or a phone number. One time I used the number he gave me and got Chipotle rather than his friend who works a different hostel. He had all these opinions of hostels and how they were run, and what they looked like, but he kept suggesting the next one.
Eventually it came down to the same old thing, there is no space, go out and find something.
For some reason my Dad was briefly there and handed me 10 Euros (which I somehow knew wasn't enough).
I was getting up to leave and the guy said something about backpackers being unprepared, and I just jumped into his conversation and said without the people I'd met, I'd never have come back repeatedly. I wouldn't have continued to travel alone, and sometimes the adventure and trusting people is what makes it.
As I was leaving (all my bags on me) headed for the door, he gave me a 100 american bill. My eyes widened and he said something like "yeah" and nodded his head, but slapped me on my back and let me continue on in my journey.

I find this dream really fascinating because -A) once again it is in this city and this space that is unknown -but becoming more known. B) a space I return to despite the anxiety and survival struggle that occurs every time. C) In this particular version, I was already surrounded by fellow passengers on the journey and I made the choice to leave them to pursue my own reality. D) I was rewarded for it with money and recognition, but not with relief.  They were saying "keep going, heres something to help, but only because I know you'll keep going."

A classmate told me her dream today and it seemed visionary and left me thinking a lot about purpose and our role in the larger whole. We had been talking about feelings of social differentness- not necessarily isolation, but recognition of differences and our responses, and our theories on how we became that way.

I think this dream I just had is a rather perfect description of the way I feel in the world.  That I am recognized for my efforts, but my journey is lonely. It is self chosen. I return again and again to the same spots -determined to learn or thrive... It has moments of connection but not ongoing.

Makes me wonder where this city is and this hostel that is so familiar yet changes shape.




(((((((((((

Her dream had to do with sex -intimacy with a particular orange politician -but the feeling of both desire and subduing his terrible urges by distraction.   She talked about the sacred feminine acting upon the worst of the masculine traits... it is really a powerful association.

I was singing this song in the shower this morning. 

I should have said something, but couldn't find something to say, so I just said nothing...

thats twice today that I couldn't find the words to make a connection. 

A man approached, we were too alarmed to be sensitive, he shared a story that was too intense, and when he asked for advice we couldn't find something to say. Three social workers, too caught up in our human fear,  to connect to human frailty. 

He said it didn't hit him until he saw the urn, it was smaller than his hand. 

My critical mind is active, but my creative mind is a little too silent. 

I started my new summer classes, both with a professor that I’ve only had online before. The class I took online with her sucked, but I looked forward to the subject matter this summer as both classes are related to macro practice in policy and organizing. I am not sure what I expected, but so far (one class in) they are very introductory and I haven’t felt challenged. Some of the assignments are cool, (researching leaders in the field, doing a community tour, meeting with a community leader), but once again… didn’t I ask my students in sociology to do a community tour? Go observe and analyze! 

My professor is really exciting in that she is outspoken in her political beliefs, but I also found her ability to structure a discussion underwhelming (like previous profs). There is no challenge or follow up… no building on an idea, no momentum. Instead, a list of ideas thrown on the board, for what purpose? Where is the application?

Our buy-in became apparent right away, and she seemed thrown off by this as if she were prepared for an argument that never occurred. Instead of rolling with that and building off it… “So what in your experience has lead you to that conclusion? What did you miss, what did you need?” she went on with her planned activities anyway with us losing steam all the while. 

We watched a video about how structural-environmental changes impact health… as if that were revelatory. These profs are not ready for our generation of experienced, smart people. And instead of pushing them to up their game, most of us sit back and cruise through because we are too exhausted or busy to demand a challenge. It’s disappointing for me, but I understand most of my peers –really are too busy because they have full time jobs. 

She also basically said that she saw her biggest impact in the field as her research, and felt held back by having to teach 9 classes a year.  9 classes a year… I’d love that. 

I find her personal experience *which she shares openly, helpful but I wish she would make it a discussion instead of a lecture that shallowly dives from topic to topic. I am hoping it was just the first day… but we only have 3 more in class sessions and will spend half listening to our peers’ presentations. So… what is this class really worth?  She said it wasn’t a class about “community organizing,” but why not? Why shouldn’t it be a class about organizing and policy, and if they save that for the second year of the macro program –then clinical folks are missing out, and macro folks aren’t getting the experience in the field of doing the work. It’s all a missed opportunity. The whole programs design is flawed… they aren’t organizing us, or teaching us to be leaders, instead they’ve become accustomed to people seeking a degree and cruising through the program. 

There is a table full of young christians in front of me, and I want to ask. 

I want to argue and persuade.

I want to listen and learn. 

I want to do both without jeopardizing the ability to do either. 

Instead I don't. 

One of the grossest things that has ever happened to me...
So lately I've been coughing a lot. It started when I was really sick a month ago, but now I feel like I am perpetually getting something stuck in my throat -which is annoying. Maybe it is more swollen than it used to be... who knows.
So I am about to fall  asleep, and I feel like I need to cough. Then I need to cough a bunch.  It gets irritating so I drink a bunch of water. I am about to fall asleep again, but the cough comes back. This time I don't move and just try to clear my throat, 5 mins, 10 mins... still irritating coughing.
I roll onto my back and sit up a bit, cough, it seems to help so I lean forward and suddenly I start throwing up all over myself (must have been a bad angle).
Then the smell of vomit garlic bread hits me. This is the most disgusting instant vomit inducing vomit smell I have ever smelled, and immediately I throw up again, and again, and again. every time I smell it!  my shirt and blanket and the garbage next to my bed are all disgusting...
I run to the bathroom, throw up in the toilet and try to keep myself from smelling everything again.
I furiously scrub myself down. Throw my shirt in a plastic bag -I want to keep it, but I thought about throwing it away. Scrub my blanket and remove it from my bed. blah blah blah and then I shower.
It's still freaking me out. And I still have the damn tickle in my throat that caused it all.

moral of the story, garlic makes for the worst vomit.

mayday

It’s Monday the 1^st of May, 2017. I have a headache, seated awkwardly on a wooden bench at Blue Moon coffee shop, listening to hippie music from the 60s and 70s. It is snowing, then raining, then something in-between, then just cold with wetness gathering up from the cars that drive by. I have to go to my internship tonight to do intakes. My phone will die. I am not looking forward to it, mostly because of the shriek in my skull when light hits my eyes just right, or when a chair is scraped along the floor. I’ve taken medicine. I’ve taken coffee.

The internet isn’t working too well. I am missing the good parts of the book I am reading, because my jaw is clenched too tight, causing a fog that swamps my eyes.

It feels like late fall, but the evening is still bright and tempting, so you crawl into the warmth beneath the covers and console yourself with an extra couple hours of Netflix.

I have determined the future. It looks like another year of the same. Afterwards, I have contemplated and come to no great conclusions. I’d like to travel. I’d like to spend some time in Portugal and the areas of Spain, I was too hasty with.

I’d like to see Southeast Asia before it drowns or burns. I’d like to have someone I feel attached enough to invite. But these are the dreams, for now it’s just head down, assignment, head down, reading, head down, internship, head down side work…

I’m considering giving up the side work. It doesn’t feel worth my time. I’d rather spend it writing. I wonder if I can write while I am in school? I’d like to spend the summer writing, really putting some substance to the frame. I want to get further along in the project, but I also want it rich. I want it buttery, hardy enough that people feel nourished by the writing and not just the story. I want the story to be intriguing, I want it to be so delicately woven that people end up rereading for the pieces they missed. I want the characters to cause aches in all the right places. I will save the desirous pleasures for later characters. I am too ahead of myself with certain areas. The more I slow down, the better the writing can be, but I need time and energy to give lovingly to the project and that is hard to balance.

I am intrigued by this world. It’s mayday after all. I should be protesting, but I’m grinding my teeth instead.

I watched Thirteen Reasons Why, and though the story was completely different, it did a lot of the things I want my writing to do. It made me want to re-watch it when I finished, to see what I had missed.

Before the retreat into my bed covers this weekend, I had actually been quite social. I had last week off from coffee shop job, so I was able to hang with some folks –some new peoples from Augsburg, some old people from high school. I haven’t seen any of my morris friends in a bit.

But it was weird how it was simultaneously comforting to be social, and also worrisome. I felt more human, more involved, part of something other than the world in my head I have created… but I also felt like I knew it couldn’t last…like my period of socialness… was doomed to let someone down. Maybe my retreat was an attempt to make sure it wasn’t me. This weekend I invited the isolation. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. The headaches made it easy.