A Recurring Dream
In this recurring dream I am lost. Sometimes on a beach, sometimes in a building I don't know. The searching for an out, an exit unleashes all of my anxiety. Robert says I could lucid dream. He advises waking up while in the dream and telling myself I am dreaming so the fear might turn into wonder. I am not sure I believe it is possible. I would rather avoid the anxiety all together. Is this recurring dream another product of this endless pandemic? Do I believe it will ever end?
I imagine crawling through a tunnel. Endless. Aren't there supply tunnels into the occupied territory in Israel? For supplies? Residents there must feel abandoned by the government. The right side so intolerant of anything that is not kosher or observant or Jewish. Perhaps it is the Covid tunnel I am lost in. Dark and narrow. Like a maize. Light appears as hope, vaccines and boosters. A cure? No, just another variant.
I got a break on a Friday afternoon. Anne and I took in a movie. My first theater outing in over two years. Except for the live one in New York last month. Anne and I saw "West Side Story." In this one, there is Robert Moses showering Manhattan with dust in order to build Lincoln Center. Displacing Puerto Ricans and others to wonder at the skyline. In this one Tony is tall and white and Maria is petite and looks more like a teenager than the stunning Natalie Wood. Rita Moreno, now 90, has a new role. Doc's widow who is wise and beautiful. Face lift? Or just amazing?
In this one the music and lyrics still transported me as so many years ago. The links again to my family. Dad ministered to the Mirisch brothers, the Hollywood conglomerate which produced the original film. A distant cousin, Larry Kert, was Tony in the first Broadway production, but was too old for Arthur Laurents to cast him in the movie. He died of AIDS many years ago. But he still has a Wiki page. In this one some say the dancing is not as dynamic when those Sharks and Jets collide, unleashing energy and choreography in a New York intersection of worn shops and bodegas. No matter the small changes or disappointments voiced by some. I loved it. I sobbed.
In between moments of aggravation that a few seats over some small group chatted as if at home in front of their own, private Netflix. "What a weird transition?" Etc. Commenting as if alone in a Zoom bubble. Mic off. I didn't want to interrupt my own dream, this one in wonderment that love could come so instantly, so deeply. Marriage in the Cloisters where movie Tony took Maria. But they hardly knew each other? In this one, in the other one. It didn't matter. Romeo found his Juliet. Was this like life before Covid? Believing all would always be well. Aging was relative. But then Anita was almost raped when she came to report Maria dead, a lie in anger that her beloved Bernardo, leader of the Sharks had been murdered by Riff. Tony, who wanted to do good, to stop the fighting as Maria requested, then killed Bernardo. Two beautiful men. Not lost. Just dead.
I cried as if it wasn't just a movie. For what we are losing, for the homeless man, probably crazy and overturning trash cans as I made my way from the parking garage to the theater. Throngs downtown for early shopping, but rather than feeling the "joy of the season," I was back in my dream. In the tunnel. Trying to get supplies for my family before the exit closes and the gates shut. Will we be shut inside again this winter?
Nico is disappointed we won't dine inside on Christmas Eve. Our crowded Chinatown restaurant where yearly we come for fried chicken wings. Cramped and happy. We won't go to a movie theater. Afraid that Jews on Christmas Eve will sit too close together and it will be less like the practically abandoned theater where Anne and I reclined to see West Side Story. Like Passover. West Side Story wasn't particularly about Jews, but generally about anyone, all of us, who feel the effects of racism, phobia of one kind or another, classicism, sexism. What is the ism of these Covid times? All of the above in addition to this recurring dream. I am lost, I am afraid and running and trying to breathe. To wake up. Perhaps I can lucid dream my way out of Covid. And unleash everyone's tears. Of relief.