the anti-paradise March 21, 2006
Last night, Steve called very late from Hawaii. He had driven 2.5 hours across the island to take his brother to catch the red-eye. He was staying the night in the larger city where the airport is located, and so he had cell phone service. Apparently, it’s raining a lot on his brother’s side of the island, so it’s “very un-Hawaii-like.” They are predicting more rain, but I don’t think he minds for now.
The last time I talked to Steve on the phone was the night before he left for Hawaii. He described his brother’s place in a small town on the island of Hawaii, and what the weather was usually like, and he mentioned that it was hard to get a good meal anywhere and difficult to get good groceries and produce. He described it as being like the Carribean, but with better weather.
That night, I had a really fun dream about Hawaii, or my crazy dream version of it since I have never been there. Steve and I were in Hawaii in someone else’s house. The someone else must have been Cher, or an Arabian pasha, because this house was incredibly opulent. It was carved out of stone, and the windows didn’t have glass. You could pull the curtains back and just look out at the ocean. There is no lava in my version of Hawaii, it looks like California. Anyway, the dream ended when Steve and I realized there was no food in Cher’s house. I Insisted on looking in every room, but he was saying, “no, let’s just go.” I never found any food, and we got so hungry we left. A funny, unsatisfied dream, but nothing menacing.
Last night’s conversation with Steve should have made me have the same kind of dream. He told me about the volcano and how it constantly vents lava and there is a place where the lava flows into the ocean and you can see the steam rising from where the fire-rock and water meet. He said that the lava sometimes comes out in unexpected places, but it’s slow-moving and they bulldoze berms to try to divert it, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Few people know this, and now six more are finding out, but Dangerblond is a self-proclaimed, unreformed geography and earth-science geek. From way back. Go on, ask me anything. All this volcano-talk was enjoyable to me and made me want to see it. It was good to talk with Steve. He sounded good. He is coming for the first weekend of Jazz Fest and we are both looking forward to it. I went to sleep thinking that all was right with my world, or as right as it can be in March of 2006.
Then I had the most horrible dream, and it seemed like it lasted so long that I found out it was a dream but I still could not wake up until I heard the clatter of Katherine’s high heels on the parquet floors.
I was not in Hawaii, I was in New Orleans. I was not with Steve, I was with Shannon. It was Mardi Gras, but we were climbing the stairs inside a skyscraper, wearing costumes, I think. A black policeman was leading us up. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but Shannon seemed to know. She was very suspicious of the policeman, but we had no choice but to follow him. After climbing about 40 floors, we came out on the roof. There were more people up there and it was like a party.
I was standing at the edge of the roof, and I could see a compressed version of New Orleans below me. I could see the Carrollton overpass and the bridge was right next to it. The West Bank was rolling hills in the distance. As we all stood there watching from this roof, the bridges and the overpasses, which were filled with vehicles, started to collapse. It wasn’t an earthquake, there was something wrong with their foundations and they were all collapsing at the same time. The drivers all tried to speed up and drive off before it collapsed, but the road fell out from under them. There were gas trucks exploding and all kinds of chaos below us. We just stood on the building looking at it, silent.
Then Shannon led us all back downstairs, which was about 2 flights down this time. We went outside and it was still Mardi Gras. We passed by people enjoying themselves. A band was playing on a stage that had an exploded truck on it. The band played and, thank god, it was the clatter of Katherine’s heels. The weirdest thing about this weird dream was that I could not speak at all. I could only look at people’s faces, and they seemed not to want to look at me. Ugh, a dream of powerlessness. Of being unable to communicate. Apparently, I’m also deeply worried about the possibility that New Orleans is standing on some pretty rotten foundations. I have no faith at all in the people who are making huge decisions for us right now. I’m filled with anxiety about how easily this next election could be fucked up. I think it’s inevitable that someone will contest the results, and I think it would be terribly destructive if a cloud of illegitimacy develops, like the one that surrounds Bush. I think before I go to sleep tonight I will visualize a landslide victory for Mitch Landrieu. Maybe that will take me back to Cher’s place in Hawaii.
