We drive and drive down many roads, trying to get to E's school. Finally, we arrive, after being lost for a long time. E shows and guides me about. She takes me to a room where there is a piano so I can do my practicing, but the route through the buildings is a series of obstacle courses. We have to walk through classrooms of busy kids (running around with lively activities) and climb over and under desks and tables that have been pushed into the pathway and get tripped up by rolling balls. It's one thing after another. When we finally get to the practice room where there is a piano I can use, a rehearsal is going on in the room. I want to do my practicing anyway, but E steers me back out of the room and down the hall again. She is not going to allow me to possibly disrupt the rehearsal. On the way back down the hall, a woman and a small boy stand in the room with the balls where other kids are playing and having fun. They want to play and are very sad because they are not allowed to (the boy is too young). (He feels as I feel--sad not to be allowed to play [in my case, the piano]!!!) I have a recital this evening (or sometime soon, and need to work through some knotty phrases. How will I accomplish this if I cannot practice! I feel tense.
This dream is interesting to me, because I do not play the piano. I have often wished I did, wanted to. But I don't.
Either I still want to, or I am worried about Graham's practicing or I am worried about my own "practicing" of some other skill and feeling thwarted in that (or all of the above.)
Could this happen as dreamed? It could, but seems very unlikely. It was quite realistic. But I think it is more likely to represent my concerns over my painting or poetry practice, my longing to be able to make music, my concerns over Graham's practicing.
"I am sad not to be allowed to play the piano." Who disallows me? I do. I don't want to start learning ANOTHER new skill when I am already feeling overwhelmed by everything I am wanting to do and accomplish (my novels, my poetry manuscripts, photography, art, illustration, children's picture books, cleaning the house, sorting stuff, etc etc. Would I have time to practice? Would I make a fool of myself? Be bad at it? Progress unbearably slowly? Would it interfere with my writing?
What obstacles prevent me from:
- practicing?
- playing music?
- playing and having fun?
- excelling at my endeavors
In most cases, the obstacles are self-generated, though there are also external obstacles--my health, limits to the amount of available time and energy, other commitments.
It is interesting that in this dream, my child plays the roll of guide and "parent." [This is sort of scary and reminds me of the issue of aging and having to be a mother of sorts to my mother before she died.] Not sure how to include that in the poem below, though. It's an extra layer of complication, which seems to require its own separate exploration. OR DOES IT RELATE to the problem at hand somehow? Is E or a "parental figure/guide" or child somehow preventing me from practicing, playing, making music, accomplishing my goals? Or is it E's goals I am worried about? WOW! Very complex. Or is E a teacher here? My child and my guide/teacher? Confusing. Or is she representing the inner parental self? Or--all of the above?
The Obstacle Course
I clamber over a desk shoved into the hallway,
crawl under another piled too high with books
and equipment to climb over, a over third
and under a fourth. My daughter steers me.
We trip on rolling balls, dodge running children.
Down one hall and another, though endless
buildings we walk and walk and walk. The school
is huge, the practice room and piano at the far end
of campus. I am eager to work through knotty phrases
and tight places for my recital tonight. But when we finally
find the practice room, a rehearsal is going on. I want
to practice, to run my fingers over the keys, to pound
and linger, to pump the pedals, but I cannot.
I clutch my hands together, moaning in frustration
as my daughter pushes me away. Back
in the room with the balls, a small boy
stands watching, weeping because he cannot play.
Mary Stebbins Taitt
080318-1058-1
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