Driving Dream

Another dream last night, little sweetheart, that I begin both to recognize as recurrent and understand what it meant to tell me.

You and I are together in a big car, like an SUV, like the Rendezvous, perhaps. I’m driving but we’re both in the back. Like all the way in the back in the third seat. As far away from the steering wheel and brakes and accelerator as one can get and still be inside the car. We’re driving or I’m driving and you’re riding next to me and we’re hurtling along. And not like on some easy, abandoned stretch of road. We’re on a highway or the freeway with lots of traffic and we’re going fast.

I realize that this is a recurring dream not only because I just told you about another one similar to it when I dreamt I was with your brother Jesse, but because it’s an anxiety that is familiar from other dreams. I realize I have it a lot  - driving at high speed impaired either because I can’t see where I’m going or because, like this, I’m far away from the wheel. It’s really a familiar anxiety. One of those that comes from dreams and still has you wound up after you wake but forgotten and unnamed.

Anyway, we’re speeding down the freeway and I’m feeling out of control and wondering how I got here, reaching over the seats to steer but afraid I’ll have to let go to actually move up and sit in front. And you’re at my side in the back but not at all worried. You’re quite calm. And that’s helping me.

Which is something I remember and recognize about being with you in life. Not that you never got upset or we never argued or something but just in the important times you were always there helping me. And in another thousand circumstances where I’d immediately start tensing up because anybody else I’d ever known would start yelling at me or blaming or something, you wouldn’t. You’d help and not get upset. You were kind and supportive and just with me when things mattered most. Unlike the others - everyone of them with one foot out the door at all times and ever keen to remind me - yours was not a fickle love.

And in the dream, your calm demeanor is what helped me, helped us. Presently, we were approaching a fork in the highway where we had to either continue on or veer off on an exit ramp. You thought we should make the turn, so that’s what we did, we took the exit ramp. And somehow we wound up inside the subway. Like drove down the stairs and onto the platform. Drove where cars aren’t supposed to be.

There was a a policeman on the platform but he wasn’t angry with us. He just directed us to turn left and we wound up in a much bigger expanse - like a concourse. Kind of like Grand Central but I think we were actually in Boston. Maybe it was the concourse at South Station.

We’d slowed down by then, just crawling along as if we were looking for a place to park. Not out of control or anything. And nobody seemed too bothered. Then you very calmly asked if we could stop so you could get us something to eat. I think maybe you’d seen a place that had frozen yogurt. Ha! So very like you, my little sweetheart. I pulled over and you said you’d bring me back something.

So, I waited for you. And now I see that’s the other part. What I’m supposed to understand.

It’s all about faith. Even when I’m hurtling through life feeling lost and out of control because I don’t have you here to help and guide and direct me, I just need to listen. Because you are here. Closer than I can imagine. Even if I can’t see or control things, you are near, you are at my side if I just quiet myself, I’ll hear you. And you are calm and with me and guiding me safely where I , where we, need to go. And if I just wait patiently like you told me to, you’ll be back in just a minute with something good for us both that we can share. I don’t have to worry. I just need to have faith. I just need like always to believe in you. And I do.