may 14, 2010

Watching a movie/performance with Robyn and Richard, advertised as interactive. I soon find that this is true to a rather literal extent - I (and Steven 'Easy' B) get tangled up in the running film strip. Once I've freed myself I head out down the sloping road and find a beautiful place filled with wild plants. I feel happy and start to play, jumping on a large spongy mat of green fern-like plants. But people leap out and I realise I've stumbled into a war. I end up hiding underwater in a shallow river running red with blood.

april 9, 2010 (fell asleep in afternoon with Gabriel)

My father Julian is staying with us. I find he has dug a hole in our floorboards, around the fire stove I'm cooking on. Grey mud is bubbling up. I get angry and panicky about it but Julian and Gavin aren't concerned.

We have a housemate called Kitty. I keep calling her 'Gavin' because she looks exactly like him. I forget her name. The confusion of this stresses me.

old dreams: 2005

april 16/17

I'm ice-skating outside the embassy when I see Sean from high school. I'm worried about skating on breaking ice but he points out that it doesn't get any thinner, it just goes lower under the water. He takes me for a ride in an embassy car - he works there. We go slow, gliding, and out the window I see yellow and bubblegum-pink flowers. They look like roses but closer I see they're more like orchids; incredibly beautiful.

------------------

There is an incredible electric bass guitar made from polished wood. The whole guitar body and neck is from a single piece of wood and follows its whorls and flecks. We go to meet the woman who made it and I fall in love at once - she's a mother with short light auburn hair and a steady way of inhabiting her body - both heavy and light.

april 21

Water is filling the grounds of my primary school. I swim to the top but keep going up into the air. Back into the water, it's now even higher than the maypole. Underwater, trying to say "My name is ..." in Te Reo, I (wrongly) say "E noho Elizabeth".

end of April, 2010

I'm staying at the house in Spring Grove until Mum dies; expected to be about a week. I'm in the back bedroom, with the door open. My trousers keep falling down. Mum comes up the hall, snapping angrily in the husky voice she had at times during her illness - "I'm not going to look at that butt crack all week!". But when we turn our faces to each other, we become delighted. Her hair is dark brown again and her face glows healthily. I say, "You look wonderful" and she repeats the same about me.

I couldn't go back to NZ right when my mother was dying (I was full-term pregnant); I often dream I had been there. She was sometimes (uncharacteristically) irritable and angry during her sickness (understandably). 

At the moment, I am getting fatter and my slouchy pants or shorts keep revealing too much.

may 2, 2010

Reading a picture book - along the lines of Graeme Base's The Eleventh Hour (elaborate kids' book containing clues with which to solve its mystery) - the clues narrow down to the multi-murderer being me. I feel sick with the realisation that yes, I did kill some people. My mother's brothers, yes. My mother? I buy the book in the hope that no-one else will realise my guilt.

My (real-life) counsellor, Sue, dresses up as my mother. I watch her acting the part as people observe me. Self-conscious. Everyone is watching me to see how upset I am. I'm not sure if I'm failing to be too held-together or failing to be upset enough. A classroom of little kids watches. Sue says to one little girl, "You must miss her. You liked her a lot." Shouldn't she be saying this to me? But I feel sorry for the girl.