Dreams and Reality

This is a repost as I'm closing my myspace page and wanted to keep this blog.

I sometimes question the idea that dreams are a manifestation of the subconscious mind. If that's the case, then I'm not sure where I am in my life, because for the past few nights, my dreams have been either about my mother or about the rose.

Now, none of them have been truly overt, allowing me to know immediately what my mind (if you belive the experts, it's only my mind and nothing deeper) was trying to tell me. In all of my examples, my mother was only a tertiary character in the dream. As for the rose... the rose would began as secondary and become more primary before I would awaken. I say this because sometimes if I fully remember the dream then it takes on more meaning. These times, it hasn't really helped doing that.

But this brings me to the reason for giving breath to these thoughts that swirl in the recesses of my mind. Over the past few years, I've become less and less inclined to believe in coincidence and even less apt to believe that dreams are manifestations of things you already have seen and/or experienced and are just being played out in your head while the other side of the world enjoys their noonday latte.

I give you this example.

One day, while I was leaving work, I got an idea in my head to stop by the Half-Price Books in Frisco. I had never been in and wanted to see what I could find that I didn't already own. If you've seen my bookcases overflowing with unread tomes, you would wonder why I felt I needed more books, which only adds to the story.

As I parked my car and got out, an older white man began walking towards me. Yes, it was important that I mentioned his race. It plays a part. The interaction was something like this.

WM: Beautiful weather were having, isn't it?
Me: Sure.
WM: So how's your day going?
Me: Good I guess.
WM: I really didn't want to bother you, but you look remarkably like my granddaughter.
Me: Okay (followed by a puzzled look).
WM: Yeah. My daughter and son-in-law adopted a little African-American girl, and you remind me so much of her.
Me: Okay (now I'm starting to feel weird).
WM: She is just the smartest little thing. And so precious beyond her years. Really articulate and reads so well. She can pick up any card game in a few minutes and beat you just like that.
Me: Okay. (At this point, I'm walking away and trying to ignore him.)
WM: Yeah. Dannie is alright.

Now, at this point, I kind of stopped in my tracks and froze for a minute. My mother was Dannie. Not short for Danielle or anything. Just Dannie, named after her father, Dan. I've never met another female named Dannie.

Me: What?
WM: I said Dannie is alright. She's a great person. (He probably said more, but I missed it completely.) Well, you have a good day.

And with that, he turned around and got back in his car. I saw him get out of his car when I pulled up. He stopped and talked to me. Then he got back in his car and drove away. He never went into the store.

Now call me crazy, but at a moment/period in my life where I experienced a loss that I hope finds none of you soon, I needed some type of comfort. I couldn't find it from my girl. I didn't want to seek it from my boys. But I needed it nonetheless. And I think it was provided for me.

So, ask yourself this. You decide to go to a store you've passed 10 times a week but never had a desire to enter, to buy something you do not need and have too much of. You meet a man in the parking lot of that store, getting out of his car. He, despite being a different race than you tells you that he has a granddaughter your race who is a joy to his family, and her name is a non-traditional and uncommon boys' name and is the same as your mother who's recent death you haven't really found a way to mourn. What would you think?

Now, as I think back on this day, I wonder about it. I mean, despite the fact that it took me a long time to even tell anyone about it, I know it really happened, but it feels so much like a dream. Then I have my recent dreams that felt so real... Maybe one day we'll all get the answers we seek.

What I do know is this. Dannie is alright is a phrase that for the three years since I've heard it has given me comfort in the time that I needed it. And for some reason in the valleys between the joys of cultivating the rose, Dannie is alright. It calms me and gets me through nights where dreams that feel so real end just before the embrace or when a single mother on TV tells her son like my mother always told me that, "It's me and you against the world," or when I can't bring myself to delete a number from my phone. I know that Dannie is alright, and that does for me what I know that no one or nothing else can.

Don't worry. It's still me and you against the world.