Dream: Money

Wee hours.

I dreamed I was driving at night up to the Campus. But as I was crossing the Ferry Street Bridge it occurred to me that I had no coins for a parking meter, so how could I stop and get out of the car? I rounded onto Franklin Blvd and pulled into a small lot for a gas station, stopped, and got out. Then I looked in my backseat and found a few quarters at first; yet tipping the seat forward, there was a ton of silver coins: quarters and even silver dollars. I muttered to myself that I had a lot more money than I’d known. And then the dream sort of dissolved or morphed into something else. Now I can ask what the dream means, and is the money literal money or a spiritual kind of currency. Either way, it’s about the resources available to me, like an unconscious treasure, as when Hansel and Gretel find the witch’s hoard of gold and precious gems in her house in the deep dark woods. It’s also like the second part of Faust, where Mephistopheles enriches the land and people can take gold like money growing on trees. I think the silver coins in my dream are an intellectual kind of wealth because my destination was the University. 

Wealth or Wisdom?

Nine o’clock.

Now the sun gleams through the cloud cover. I guess I’ll call Polly in another hour. I feel kind of punchy from the heat; it never cooled down much last night.

Eleven o’clock.

I changed my mind about calling Polly. If she wants to call me, then fine. They say it’s raining now but I don’t hear it, though the clouds look like they could. My mind is a collage of memories from schooldays and from when I had a clerical job 18 years in the past. Minimum wage back then was about $8.50 an hour. There was little difference between doing that job and doing nothing at all. The tasks were just a distraction from my thoughts, but then I learned how to think and work simultaneously. A coworker told me I needed a harder job so I couldn’t think; but of course this would never do for me. On paydays I would stop by the bank to cash my check which ran about $285. If it was a Friday afternoon, then my next stop was the little store to get a half rack of Foster’s or Henry’s beer and something to eat. I had fallen into the rut of working and drinking that happens to many people. But the lamentable thing for me was the lack of free time to read and think. As it happened, I got hooked on alcohol and could do nothing but drink… I like to believe that I did the best I could with my options. I value freedom more than wealth, and material gain is nothing next to wisdom. “Love of learning is the guide of life.”

For a Rainy Day

Quarter of six.

I spent a restless night. I slept a little here and there and had a bad dream about my parents: they wanted me to sell my basses to compensate for some other expenses. Perhaps they wanted me to go to school. It was a bad dream because I was subordinate to them again, riding in the backseat of their car and being told what to do. But without autonomy, a person never knows who he is; thus independence is vital to your growth and wellbeing. I’d rather be my authentic self and make dumb mistakes than a servant to anyone else and be perfect. And who’s the judge of whether you do right or wrong? If grownups save their children from error, then who will save the grownups from the same thing? It’s silly to be an overprotective parent. Eventually we all have to stand on our own two feet, for good or bad. Just now, a police car siren goes off, but I only shrug and mind my own business. So my dream was a bad one; the return of my parents was like prison for me. People deserve to live with dignity, freedom, and power over their own future.

Quarter after seven.

I hardly ever go to Bi Mart anymore, even less on foot. I used to walk a mile anywhere I wanted to go. A few times I went as far as Santa Clara Square for physical therapy on foot. What’s up with the difference today? I don’t want to spend more money than I have to; but there’s something more. Dunno. Maybe money is mobility and poverty is staying put. Still, selling my guitars is out of the question. You got it, keep it.

On a Banner

Quarter of seven.

Yesterday morning I walked past a roadkill squirrel on N Park and felt a pang of remorse. Squirrels are such happy creatures when you see them frolic around the neighborhood, chasing each other in twos and threes, taunting and scolding the dogs that try to catch them, and sometimes frying themselves on a power transformer… Later in the day I caught sight of a banner on the fence outside Randy’s car lot:

COMING SOON: WILL’S AUTO REPAIR… ON MAXWELL

I don’t know how I feel about that yet, though it seems like a weird time for someone to start a business anywhere, let alone on Maxwell Road. This place has always been poor and rather on the squalid side. The only business that gives it any respectability is Community Market— to say nothing bad about the salon. Everyone around here has had to struggle to stay alive financially, and it’s been the same way for forty years. Why doesn’t some rich person buy the community and spruce it up to make it prosperous again? But then it wouldn’t have the touch of personality and humanity that gives it the Maxwell vibe. According to Karen, Kelly Middle School will inherit the old North Eugene High School building on Silver Lane, and the Japanese immersion school gets the entire place on Howard Avenue. While everything changes, the general spirit of the neighborhood remains pretty much the same: kind of old fashioned, the way I remember it for all these years. Some kids are destined to fly this place and never come back. Others will stay and describe its history and speculate on its future.

One Big Boat

Seven thirty.

Today I’m skipping the caffeine completely. It was turning into a problem with my sleep. There’s just a light rain this morning, but we get more rain than sun this June for whatever ecological reason. At one time, all I worried about was staying alive, but now I worry about more complex things. Frankly I’m tired of the stress. It’s tempting to just opt out of life one way or another. But then I’m probably not alone with the bigger picture. I’ve gone from poor to virtually penniless due to inflation. It doesn’t help when people say that the ultra rich will alone survive in the long run. Something must be done for the little guys, the paupers with nothing but the clothes on their back. My bank makes it more difficult for me. Maybe I should switch to a credit union or something. But not until I’ve paid off my credit cards, a long way away. I really need to talk to somebody at my bank, but they don’t answer the phone. I feel I’m up a creek without a paddle, but again, perhaps not alone.

Society

Quarter of seven.

To be at peace on one side is being at war on the other. You can’t please everybody, so it’s best to just please yourself. On my own behalf, I have no complaints. The system works for me well enough. We need to take care of our disabled people and not throw them to the lions or out on the streets. Many people feel resentful if someone isn’t pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, being a bum and a slacker. Even my family feels this way, especially the guys. Maybe my position is indefensible, but I’m not alone in it. My medication out of pocket would cost me about $1450 a month, and there’s no way I can afford that without my benefits. The alternative is to refuse medication or take a less expensive one that doesn’t work as well. Unmedicated people with schizophrenia often use alcohol or other illicit drugs and end up homeless. I just do the best I can with my circumstances, so people can take it or leave it… I had a dream last night that symbolized society with a veterinary hospital. The vet gave me hell for being a poor dog owner, so I told her what she could do. I still question whether sociology is a legitimate science. Is society a measurable, palpable thing, or just a meaningless abstraction? But if I can dream about it then it must have subsistence that I can feel, if not define. 

An Easter Thought

Quarter of nine.

The little market opened an hour later today for the holiday. The radio played the Beastie Boys, rather incongruous for Easter morning. For the past few days I’ve felt lousy from a certain prescription drug, so now I’m stopping it. I gave Aesop some Gravy Train after his breakfast, which he didn’t like, but it was all they had at the store. After a while I guess I’ll read my Henry James again, although his attitude kind of annoys me. Everyone would probably love to live in the lap of luxury, but it’s an elusive thing even when you have it, and it so easily melts from your grasp. I feel more like Pip in Great Expectations than like a character in James. It was just a happy accident that I ever went to college, and the benefactor was my mother… My mother despised money and raised me to be oblivious to the fact of it. She sheltered me from the grimy reality of hard knocks, and as a consequence I’ve ended up on the sidewalk, but luckily with a place to live. I still dislike the sight of cash; it makes me think of alcohol… Yesterday morning I was in the car with Gloria coming back from the thrift store. As we passed under the highway we saw the camp of some homeless people: a few shopping carts and a string of junk that they considered worthy belongings. An hour later I’d be sitting reading a book of drawing room manners, never putting two and two together until now. 

Pathfinder

Seven forty.

The real world is a far cry from the university campus, but the latter is more expensive. It’s an arrangement that doesn’t seem fair if you’re an intelligent pauper. Poverty can be a prison cell, and yet everyone likes to have free time to do what they love to do. A gain here is a sacrifice there. We barter time for money and money for time but can’t have both. A title from Lord Byron speaks: “I Would I Were a Careless Child.” I long for a Golden Age where necessities grow on trees and nobody has to earn their living. Like children, you can play and enjoy life with no responsibilities. The Golden Age and the Garden of Eden are the same thing, a childhood paradise that would last forever if we only obeyed our father.

At nine o’clock, Gloria is coming to work for me again. The sky is clouded over and there’s no breeze. I bought her a bottled water because she told me she’s diabetic. She worked hard the last time she was here and we got a lot done. I’m not certain what I’m aiming for with my life. I’d still like to play in a rock band if that’s even realistic. Circumstances keep blocking my way, so I think I have to plow an avenue myself where no road existed before. 

Games People Play

Eleven thirty at night.

I’ve been dreaming about the devil in his role as deceiver, the one who trips you up and does you in. It’s a mystery why such a Christian dream should keep occurring to me. Does it mean I ought to go to church again? In my opinion, you can be a good Christian without church involvement, which is what Kierkegaard partly had to say. The church I used to attend expected that you tithe when you could, but I can’t afford to give away money anymore. I’m on a fixed budget that allows no extras, not even a car to get around town. Financially, I’ll never get ahead, and that’s fine with me as long as I have free time to think like a natural human being. I spent five years as a data entry slave, typing in alpha-numerals that were meaningless to me, oiling the machine with weekend binges, and hating life. Towards the end of my job, I figured out their game and started winning at it. At the agency meetings and when a prize was raffled off, I would come out the winner, and then give it away to somebody. The game turned out to be a shallow and silly one, something for children. A coworker told me I had outgrown the workplace, and before long I left that job. I guess all jobs are transitory things. Even a church can be a thing you use up and move on from. Sometimes a smart person ends up with nowhere to go until the next big change. And sometimes he learns that he constitutes the big changes himself… 

High Hopes

Eleven o’clock.

I found an old CD of Alan Parsons Project in my stuff so I’ll listen to it today or tonight. I haven’t heard the album in over fifteen years and I’ve forgotten what it sounds like except for “Games People Play.” I bought the disc at Fred Meyer when I had a clerical job with the agency, and during that time I really believed my job would lead me to something better eventually. But it turned out to be a dead end and actually an alcoholic trap that could have killed me. I started out with high hopes for my future at what ended up as drudgery.

Eleven thirty five. But if I hadn’t started drinking again, my future in that job might have panned out very differently. Right now I kind of miss having a businesslike occupation to do, something involved with money. The way it was, alcohol and money became synonymous with each other; and now I don’t even carry cash because it reminds me of my addiction and other illicit stuff that goes with the workplace. I used to know a few people who were dishonest and unethical, but I just grew accustomed to it until it was normal to me. One of them would chide me for being a “Boy Scout.” I guess I was really in the wrong place for a long time and it took its toll on me. Today I think I’m okay with being a sober person with a disability, who doesn’t worship money and the things that people kill for. So it’s quite interesting to examine what happened in my life and the phases I went through, the corrupt people I knew, and everything else. Maybe the guy was right to sneer at my Boy Scout policies, but I don’t think so. And this person happened to be my brother…

Two o’clock. All this time, the sunshine has been strong and very pretty, with the temperature nearly 60 degrees outside. I quaffed most of my Coke and then played the bass guitar with a view of the blue sky through the window. It’s like springtime except the deciduous trees are still bare. Later I’ll listen to the Alan Parsons and appreciate today and the opportunity I have to think about everything.