NIGHT FISHING IN PITTSBURGH

Dream: I was on a trek through the woods with some comrades. We were going by stream--I was wading through a winding stream. At one moment, I was startled to notice that the thick green algae had disappeared from the surface of the water; I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what the water contained. Preferred blindness. But I dared to look down. In the clear water, a number of huge, beautiful salmon were swimming around my ankles. I was heartened by their color and their health, until I realized that I was going to have to kill one of them, to feed my comrades. The salmon wasn’t even going to mind, but I didn’t want to do it. Still, it was a responsibility I had; there wasn’t a question. I was to use a knife to cut off the head, and then filet the fish and cook it over a fire. This is what women did who wanted to provide for themselves and their friends.

Dream: I was screaming at the top of my lungs, standing in a kitchen with a huge convection oven, near a batch of freshly baked somethings, possibly bagels.

Dream: Something about the date 1833, and a man’s last name. He was a Mexican whose name was from Spain, and suggested Spanish nobility.

Dream: I was rushing off to _______ with my cat, the female one. I had to stop by the grocery store first, because we needed food for the journey. My cat was in my arms, wrapped in a plaid wool blanket. The grocery store we approached was one of the huge, multi-purpose ones like I first saw in Texas; in the front this particular store had a veterinary clinic. A long line of desperate people (many of them older women in kerchiefs) waited for their animals to be released or seen. I hurried past them, as if I was going to be asked to leave my cat in this area. I approached the entrance to the grocery store proper, and I pulled the blanket up over my cat’s head, to cover her completely. At the same time that I was disguising her as my baby, I could feel her against and in my heart. She seemed very vulnerable to me, and very precious. I was touched that she was not struggling to get away from me; it was uncharacteristic. Her blanket was soft and her body was warm; I held her tightly against my breast bone. It was very important that I protect her. By the time I got to the checkout (we were buying andouille sausage), she was switching her tail for all to see, but the kerchiefed women near me fawned over her with knowing smiles.

Dream: Thomas and I were vacationing in Manhattan. But we were in an altered part of Tribeca--south of White Street, there was a bay or an inlet. Really it was a lake or a spring, because it didn’t connect to the Hudson nor the East River. But it was made of salt water. Towards the west end of this body of water, around West Broadway and Chambers Street, there were some barrier reef islands, and then north of that, a large peninsula. We spent some time trying to barter with the natives (who had street tables full of _____ ) on the islands, and then we ended up on the much quieter peninsula, where there were long, empty beaches of pale sand. At the end of the peninsula (which had a clean, geometric shape) was a modest lighthouse that had been turned into a motel. Rooms, we heard, were nineteen dollars a night. We couldn’t decide whether this was a great bargain to be taken advantage of, or whether it just meant it was a flophouse.