March 17, 2013

Blessed Saint Patrick. Except for that part about the snakes. It is dark, but the darkness is emerald.

Woke with a feeling of supernatural well-being. I’ve recovered from this voyage faster and with fewer consequences than any one before.

Woke from detailed and extended dreams. They were of my high school crowd, and how each year we met to put on a sort of race/talent show where we showed off our various hobbies and expertises. We raced around a very large track, part of it in the woods, part of it in a sumptuous hotel, cooking or declaiming poems or doing some favorite trick at certain points on the track. I seemed to be teamed up on one occasion with Bobby May, and in the dream there was a sidebar about the origins of our relationship which was really quite accurate. I saw him on a tilted street in Akron on a day when we walked from East High to Goodyear for a field trip during summer school. The image is exactly what happened, exactly what I remember, as though there were some direct route of access between dream and memory. It being my dream, I generally won the contest, and then there would be a big communal dinner. In life I am the slowest runner in the world; in my dreams I am often swift and weightless, consciously rejoicing in my speed.

Put down one of the carpets (the one I brought with me in my luggage) in the bedroom. The cats test it out, padding around on it. They try sharpening their claws, and I bellow, and they disappear. Then I come in again and they’re standing on it, tensed for flight, looking up at me to determine what the boundaries are. Curling up, yes; clawing, no. They good at this, as the few and early claw marks on the leather furniture attest.

Except for chili at O’Hare, have not eaten since I left Istanbul. Since octopus salad at Osman’s.