Dec '06

I had a dream last night. In my dream:
I am with my mother and grandmother. We are at a small cabin and we are waiting for someone to arrive so we can all go out together. They are watching TV and I am doing small stuff around the place. On the TV there are these images of a bunch of Latin/Hispanic people protesting. The protesters are laying in the street and the police are spraying them with high pressure water and are forcibly removing the people from the streets. My matronly elders are appalled by these images, supporting the protesters and criticizing the authorities. I on the other hand offer a racist remark along the lines of 'Those Mexicans will never get anywhere acting like that,' which disturbs my mother. She asks where a sentiment like that would come from, but I don't answer, I just find some other menial task to occupy myself.
They change the channel and now there is coverage of a marathon. There is a young black boy on the screen, in the lead and nearing the finish line. His elation and exhaustion are visible. As he is about to break through the plastic tape it disappears, as does everything else except the bewildered and defeated boy. There he is alone in some barren land, no spectators, no runners, nothing but the tired child. As I watch this I can't help but think it relates to me. Uneasy with that thought I find some other project to focus on. Finally my friend arrives and we are all getting ready to leave. She picks up this coupon for some spa service that will expire in a few weeks. She asks if I am going to use it. I look at it; I got the coupon almost six years earlier. I was out of the country and had told myself at the time that I was going to make changes in my life and a big change was that I was going to start to treat myself to pampering. I choose that particular coupon because there was so much time on it, I thought for sure I would have the chance to use it. Now there is only a bit of time left and I knew I wouldn't go. So I gave it to my happy friend, knowing that she would do with it what I didn't. As I turned out the light and shut the door to the cabin I felt a bit like the child athlete-defeated, albeit self inflicted.