Unsent Letters #14

It hasn't rained in weeks

Photo by Makoto Tsuka on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Dear M.,

I’m no longer dreaming like I used to. Or maybe I am, but forget everything the instant I open my eyes. Including the feeling I’m left with, which is arguably the most important thing. Lately, though, I feel like I’m getting my dreams back somewhat, both the remembrance and the leftover parts. Plus, I catch myself doing new, weird things. Often, I start a dream when I’m still hanging between wake and sleep, in that magical state of abandonment where I’m about to cave in and slip into non-existence. There, I know that I’m not yet in a full dreaming mode, but I enter the dream nonetheless. Like a spectator to a scene where I’m also acting. And if I don’t like what I’m seeing, I just say no, I don’t want to dream that. And everything fades away. 

Remember the conversation we had that time at our coffee shop, where we talked about dreaming and I told you about my new fasting regime? What does fasting have to do with dreaming, you asked. I don’t know, but I’m sure there’s a connection. Ever since I started regularly skipping dinner, my dreams have become more vivid, I can remember them a little better, and I’ve noticed that I can end them early if I’m still in that liminal space and don’t like where they’re going. You gazed up from your phone screen and gave me that skeptical look I’m getting accustomed to. Everything is connected to everything else, you said, that’s not enough for a reason. 

And so last night I had a dream. It was long and articulated, full of changes of scene and characters and mood. The only part I remember, though, is when I get out in the rain under a wide umbrella. It’s very dark but it’s not night, or a winter evening, and I walk in the street with someone beside me -- a woman, I think -- who says Look how large Silvio’s umbrella is, as if talking to someone else who is also part of the scene but I can’t see or perceive. It’s pouring. The kind of pouring that gets you wet even under the umbrella. But I feel well protected and keep walking. I cross the street and charge ahead in the same direction that I crossed the street. It must be a large sidewalk, or a part of the city where cars are not allowed. 

At some point the light changes as the sun timidly tries to break from behind the clouds. I turn toward this woman and see that her face is getting brighter and say The light’s changing, can you tell? I think it will stop raining soon. And, sure enough, it does. It stops raining but I still keep my umbrella open above me as if I don’t want to rush into believing that, in fact, the rain stopped. Maybe it’s just a spell and it gets dark again soon, I think. Eventually I decide it’s safe to shut it, as the sun’s out decisively and it’s gotten dry all around me.

There’s much more before this scene, including me going into what feels like a musical instruments shop and talking to its owner or an employee. About what I can’t remember, but it was a casual conversation. It left me with the sensation of having dreamt a long dream, something I haven’t felt for a long time, and a neutral to positive general aftertaste. More on the positive side, probably. Especially the transition from pouring rain to sun.

Whenever I get to remember a dream, I seek a positive interpretation. This time, though, I didn’t have to come up with an unlikely, scrambled reasoning, or grasp at straws. It pours, then stops and the sun’s out: how straightforwardly positive is that? I guess it speaks to a difficult period that finally ends, although I’m just focusing on the final scene and I still have no idea what came prior (except for that musical instruments shop conversation, which felt okay). That’s why I’m saying neutral to positive.

Then I spoke to A and told her about the dream and she said that she, too, found it positive. Without giving any interpretation or reasoning, she just thought it was a good dream. Incidentally, she said, I had a similar dream two nights ago. I am driving a car uphill. The engine suddenly shuts off, and the car slowly starts rolling backwards downhill, as if it has lost momentum. But I’m not worried and keep looking ahead, with a smile on my face. At some point the car gently hits something, like the edge of a steep sidewalk, and stops. But this doesn’t happen abruptly. Instead, it feels as if I know that sooner or later the car will stop going downhill because something will keep it from continuing, and that this will occur smoothly. I just know.  

I’m not sure about A’s fasting routine, if any. But ours are indeed two similar dreams. Similar in terms of possible underlying message, not in terms of scene and settings, ça va sans dire. A bad or unpleasant or painful situation ends, and a reversal unfolds. Sometimes all it takes is a good dream to mellow my mood and make me happy for a little while. Maybe just for a day or an hour. Knowing it will not last very long, when it comes along I cling to it with all the cells in my body. So I decided that to make these fleeting dream-driven moments immortal, I’d write about them. And send them off in a letter to myself, like that old Steely Dan song says. Except this letter is to you.

It hasn’t rained in weeks. It’s not uncommon for this city to go through long rainless streaks. You lived here; I guess you know. When I got up this morning, the first thing I did was try to remember the dream. So I scribbled something quickly on a pad. It was earlier than usual. That’s good, I thought, the gym won’t be that crowded. So I opened the window, went to the bathroom, had a quick coffee, got dressed, and took my gym bag. At the front door, I realized I forgot the book. It’s a twenty-minute walk to get to the gym, and ever since I learned to read while walking, I’ve been taking a book with me. A great way to catch up on my reading. So I went back to my bookshelf and took Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.

Finally ready, I opened the front door and saw my umbrella leaning on the wall, all wet and dripping. Exactly where I usually leave it when I get home after I’ve been out in the rain. I stopped short, breathless. I checked to see whether it was really my umbrella. And it was. It had all the typical marks of an umbrella of mine: beaten down, falling to pieces, barely functioning. I checked the umbrella stand right inside my place, and it wasn’t there.

It hasn’t in weeks, said the doorman when I asked him whether it had rained overnight. I wish it had, he added, we’re all desperate for some rain; the air’s getting heavy, too much traffic and fumes and dust.

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"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.

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