DRE-E-E-E-EAM, dream dream dre-eam

When you grow up, you assume your life is the normal life of all the other kids in the world.  When you get older, you realize just how non-normal your growing up actually was, well, compared to all the other non-normal lives you learn about as time goes on.  Confused yet?

All that to say, I grew up thinking everyone dreams in color.  I do.  Of course I’m not the weird one, am I?  Thanks to the internet, I have discovered that more than 80% of people dream in color.  Not so weird after all, thankyouverymuch.  Yet another fact caused me to pause and consider my abnormalness once again…. 95-99% of people forget their dreams. What?  Almost every night I have vivid dreams and can tell the tales of them the next day.  My children take great pleasure in asking me what I dreamt last night and then rolling on the floor holding their sides due to laughter induced dream tales.  Some dreams have stuck with me for years… for 24 years, in one case… like it was yesterday.  Some are so real that I write them down to ponder later.

While we were away at Christmas I had this great dream (that my children loved) about my husband wanting to redo the greenhouse (that we don’t have) on the back of the house (that we don’t live in).  He was all inspired and wanted to show me his plans, but he insisted the best view was from the neighbor’s back driveway.  The only glitch was that he was naked and I wasn’t walking outside with him.  I’m the modest one in the family, for goodness sakes alive, even in my dreams.  So he talked me into driving over to the neighbor’s back driveway in our station wagon with tasteful “wood” paneling on the sides.  He drove me over there and proceeded to do a 13 point turn in the little driveway until the car was facing our greenhouse (sideways on the driveway.)  But the inevitable happened and he backed up too far and we went down into the ditch and got stuck.  I told him I would climb out the window and go call AAA but he yelled, “You cannot call Triple A, I’m naked!”  And that was the end.  I did not find deep meaning in that dream.  I pray we never own that house or car!  But it WAS funny!

Sixteen years ago, after watching Father of the Bride 2, my husband decided we should move from Spruce Grove, Alberta to Phoenix, Arizona to be near my parents.  I whole heartily agreed.  We put the house on the market and prayed for a quick sale, it was winter after all. Then I had a dream about a lady coming to buy our house. I awoke quite relieved and explained in detail what she looked like to my husband. For ten long months, our house sat on the market and many people came to see it.  Every time I opened the front door, if it wasn’t the lady in my dream, I was disappointed.  Phoenix was calling my name, after all.  Finally one day she came.  I recognized her.  And she did buy our house.  Truly, I think God gave me the picture of her as a sign of hope that there was someone coming.  It gave me a measure of assurance.

Do you remember your dreams?

I’m the one on the OUTSIDE???

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was a fortunate kid who had both sets of grandparents until my teens.  Most of our family vacations (in the station wagon with the 8-track tape of the singing Statesmen) were spent driving to and from one of my grandparents’ homes.  My maternal grandparents lived in White Rock, B.C. a block from the beach and they had a trampoline in the back yard and wild blackberry vines that grew down the hill from their home.  All of those were important items on my list as a kid.  They lived in a four-story yellow house that stood out like Big Bird when we were on the beach looking toward land.  The reason they lived in a four-story, gargantuan home was because my Grandmother took care of 10 women who had special needs, all who lived in the top floors of the canary-colored house. Grandma and Grandpa lived in the lower floor in two cramped bedrooms, a kitchen and livingroom.  I can’t remember where we slept when we stayed there, but I have fond memories of that house.

The Ladies ate at a large diningroom table in a window-laden room facing the ocean on the second floor.  It was a ways from the kitchen, where my grandmother cooked for all 17 of us inhabitants.  We ate at a squishy kitchen table that was at the back of the house in a nook with windows across the far wall.  Our view was the driveway and the neighbor’s fence. The table was formica with a gray and white pattern of triangles, and there were secured benches all the way around the table.  No chairs.  There was no room for chairs.  I felt like a sardine lined up with my siblings and sometimes my cousins. And I loved it.

The day we arrived, Grandma gave each of us a see-through pill bottle with a white snap-on lid with our name written on it in a rainbow-shaped curve. It was for vacation allowance.  Each and every day she handed out a quarter to me and my brother and sister.  The coins fit perfectly in the little bottles. I have always relished things that fit perfectly.  True to form, my brother would save his coins all week so on the last day he could carefully purchase a yo-yo, or a rubber coin purse that squeezed open or a candy bar.  I lavishly spent my quarter every day.  On junk candy.  And I was okay with that. Because the next morning, for at least 20 minutes, there would be another shiny quarter that would fit perfectly into the bottom of my pill bottle that said L-I-N-D-A in the rainbow-shaped curve.

There were “other” cousins that also came to Grandma’s yellow beach house on Buena Vista Drive.  Three girls, close to the same ages as us, but we weren’t “real” cousins.  We spent a Christmas or two together when we were very young, eating at Grandma’s, but we never swapped gifts.  I never gave it much thought but somehow felt sorry for them because they weren’t Grandma’s “real” grandchildren.  I considered them on the outside.

In my 16th year of life, I came to the realization that the Grandmother that I loved, was married to my Grandfather…. after my maternal Grandmother passed away years previously.  She was my STEP-Grandmother.  But how could that be?  She was not like Cinderella’s Step-anything!  She loved us and fed us and gave us vacation allowance.  THEN I realized that I was not a “real” grandchild…. I was on the outside!  The three girls were on the INSIDE! That shocked me for days.  It was my first real-life experience knowing unconditional non-blood related love.  We were family and that was all that mattered. And I loved it.

More tomorrow, on my beloved Grandmother.