southern gothic

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

- William Faulkner

waking up and the thaw

the seasons are mixing and moving, but it's mostly spring now. we went to the woods last weekend for the vernal equinox and it was beautiful to sleep in a circle on the ground with lights in the trees and pancakes and tea over the fire and the voices of my friends all around me. i am awake after months of hibernation and it's startling and good.

but every night my dreams pull me around and i wake up exhausted. last night i dreamt about a camping trip in the woods with long lost st. christine's classmates and their babies and husbands and mini vans. but first ferdinand and tony and i took a strange detour to a sleazy kentucky motel where the staff and customers were all slimy KKK members who were there for sex and gambling. we holed up in a musty dark room where i watched the lobby warily from the window while ferdinand took photos. then suddenly i fell to the ground and reality split into layers and layers parallel to the sleazy motel, and in one of them i was working for tony soprano and there were motorcycles and hit men and ominous plans. we drove into the woods and found an elaborate system of tunnels and domiciles made from sticks and stones scattered with relics from some long-gone residents. there was some feeling of doom or dread hanging over every adventure as reality continued to couple and split. i flickered in and out of someone else's large family gathering with plates and plates of delicious food. my father was there and we feasted on pasta and salad and fried chicken and took naps on the couches. then everything was reduced to virtual reality again and i watched it on the windshield screen of a motorcycle parked in the motel's lot. i drove it down the block and found tony soprano installing a taco truck in another empty lot, so i advised him in its placement. then i woke up, in real life this time, and there was snow on the ground.


time is flying by and life is a countdown again.