Dream 01/16/2023: Reunion at High School

 

I found myself at a reunion at my high school.  I had brought my art portfolio which I assembled over the four years I worked there.  I open the portfolio and examine my work dating back to my teenage years.  I hated it, not only because it was the work of a child, but that I had not practiced since my graduation.  As a result, my talent not just stalled, but regressed.  

A fellow alumna approached me.  She said she was now part of the Shen Yun dancing troupe.  We got into conversation and I told her I had become a filmmaker - a half truth, since I was also out of practice with that discipline.  Excited, she asked me if I could film her leaping over a hedge.

I managed to corral  some fellow alumni and we built a slide ramp on which she can dance.  We orchestrated how she would slide down the ramp and leap into the air.  We fixed a camera on a pendulum to film her slide down the ramp and leap through the air.

We discovered that room where we built the ramp was not big enough for her to stick the landing.  We brainstormed on how we can film her slide and leap without crashing into a wall.  Should we cheat the camera angle?  Put a mattress on the wall as well as the floor?  Shorten the ramp?

We put all those adjustments in place and set up the final take.  We succeeded in filming her slide and leap, but the camera was damaged in the process.

The high school camera department was angry with us.  The high school principal was angry with the camera department.    While both authorities were raging back and forth, we decide to clear out before we were “caught in the crossfire.”

Somehow we wandered onto a beach.  The high school had vanished from behind us. There was nothing but beach houses in its place.  We all decided to wait for the tide to come in, but we still discussed our youth in high school.  We shared stories, laughed and commiserated.

“I’m old,” I said.  “I’m only fifty, but I feel older.”

I was expecting the others to laugh and ridicule me, but they also sulked.  One said he felt heavy with age.  There were no wrinkles on our faces nor were there grey hairs on our scalps, but we were grey faced and hunched over.  Slowly, my friends faded to grey shadows and vanished.  I looked at my hand and it seemed to become less tangible.  I asked myself “Am I dying?”

No, I just woke up.

- JJB