February 9
Gurú is a Chilean friend of Camila’s, who came to participate in a conference on Nonviolent Communication (I presume.) She works on women’s issues and teaches yoga back in Chile. Camila suggested we have lunch together at Mini-Mal a restaurant that specializes in Indigenous and Afro-Colombian cuisine.

While we waited for Camila, I used the translator on the phone to read the menu, but since many of the words were Indigenous, it didn’t help. For example: “Cured and smoked pirarucu, grilled pineapple, green chili mayonnaise, farofa, lemon ants.” (Yes, they do eat rather large ants in some areas of Colombia). A lot of the food mixed savory and sweet things together (rabbit stew in coconut milk), which I don’t enjoy. I think I ordered the empanadas, and we ordered native potatoes as a starter—all very good.

In the evening, Gurú, Camila, and I went to see the film, Hamnet, while Michael saw Marty Supreme. Gurú and I were weeping at the end, and Camila wanted to know why it had moved us so much. My Spanish comprehension is poor, and Gurú doesn’t speak much English. However, we managed to describe the tragedy of two people who were in so much pain they could not comfort each other after their son died. Gurú identified some foreshadowing events that I had missed earlier in the film.

My back was in agony after the film because of the theater seats, but it’s been a long time since I’ve wept uncontrollably at the movies.

That night I had three dreams:

Olivia Benson from Law and Order SVU and I were with an Indigenous tribe in the United States. I don’t remember what concern brought us there. A little boy with a hang glider-type contraption was at the periphery of a group of adults, whom Benson was talking to. While the adults were discussing things, he climbed on top of a high place and jumped. Everyone was horrified as we saw him falling, not flying, but as he got closer to the ground, he appeared to be floating. People started sliding down huge piles of dirt to him, like, mountains of dirt. We would get to the bottom of one and then slide down the next mountain. We got to the bottom, and then a bunch of us went to a camp to take showers. For some reason, I was dirtier than everyone else. There was a very long line for the showers. At some point, waiting in line, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Teresa Nickeson, a friend from church, told me that a shower was free to use. I entered and saw there was nothing there. She pointed me to a door, and I saw a toilet. I woke up and went to the bathroom.

In the next dream, we were living in some dystopian version of the United States, even more dystopian than now. The country was at war and we could see smoke coming up from a bombing in the distance. Many people had died from a disease, especially many children.  We were visiting a couple of friends of Michael in the Midwest. He asked if we could give them some fruit, and the husband immediately began to bring out tons of produce to show that they didn’t need it. We talked about his two dead teenage daughters who have been friends with Michael’s daughter. Then, a wild-looking man came to the door, and the husband started yelling at him. He said the man could come in and get some food, but then he needed to leave. The wild man began racing around the house, acting obnoxious and mean. After the father threw him out, I found out the year was maybe 2017 or 18. I told him we’re in the year 2027 and none of this has happened. Your daughters didn’t die. And then poof, his daughters Hannah and Anna appeared wearing windbreakers. And there was no war and the smoke disappeared and I think I began seeing other things that didn’t happen. I spoke more realities into being.

I felt very empowered.

The last dream I remember, I was with our Rabbi, Drorah. We were in crowded auditorium, and Barbra Streisand was squeezing by. Drorah asked if Streisand had gotten her letter about Puerto Rico. (This was after Bad Bunny’s triumph at the Super Bowl.)  There was more to the dream than that, but it ended with me having a conversation with Drorah. Two teenage girls were giggling at the end of the table. Drorah snapped at them for being rude to me, and one of the girls said “No, we think you’re super cool, you have this, like, Goth thing about you that’s really interesting. I said “I always wished that there had been Emos back in my time because I felt very alone in high school. If there had been Emos around, at least I would’ve had a group of friends that I could have related to. I was just depressed by myself.” And the girl said, “Right! Everyone needs a group of friends who understands them.“

I talked about the dreams with my therapist when I got back. She noted that all of them, in a way, deal with theme of lost children, which might have been the influence of Hamnet.

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