early September

Exploring a row of low adobe huts, I find beautiful pendants hanging from an open doorway. Circles of yellow or green threaded through the hole in their centre. I take a yellow one for myself and am about to take one of the luminous green ones for Mum when I realise I can't give it to her.

20 august, 2010

Living with a grey and white dog in Japan. We go out biking - a bike each. Dog is a thin medium-sized breed, like kelpie, whippet, greyhound. I feel a bit anxious about him being on a bike. He is ahead of me. Coming down a grassy slope, I see he's fallen and badly hurt. People passing by looking at him and looking worried, but no-one stops to tend him before me. His pelvis is broken. I feel so bad I did this to him. What was I thinking? - of course dogs can't ride bicycles. I struggle to get him to a vet clinic, searching for a sign in English. One points toward 'UNREAL'.

 (my pelvis is hurt from during pregnancy and has been flaring up again lately)

june, 2010

I was starting to do magick, but some large presence blew and blew in the window at me until I was so scared I woke up saying, "Who are you?"

early june, 2010

Dad is driving Hannah and I. He swerves in order to run down a big dog. We hear a thump and see its broken body. He keeps driving, while we are screaming at him, "I hate you."

june 12, 2010

Sitting in Gavin's childhood bedroom, looking out the window at the beauty of grey-white sky with yellow leaves tumbling about. [Gavin's mother] Sophie stands up in front of me and I see that she has a penis. I think, 'My penis looks right on me, but it's too weird for Sophie to have one.'

late may

Sitting around a table with Noeline and Mum. We're telling each other what countries we want to visit. After awhile I have a realisation and say to Mum, "But I already know you'll never be able to go to any of these places." I feel confused and angry, and leave the table, saying "It's unfair! Time's not happening the way it's supposed to."

may 18, 2010

I'm hosting our mothers group meeting. There's lots of work going on around us, at home - construction and the like. I'm so excited that Mum is finally going to meet my mothers group friends. But she's so involved with some work with a pile of tyres off to the side of the lounge where we're sitting. I coax her over and introduce her to Robyn (or was it Madeleine?). She smiles and greets her, but immediately returns to her work. I try again and again to get her to come and meet the others, but I can't hold her attention. Our group leave and walk through a corridor. We come to a stand of stamps and inks (such as are sometimes at tourist spots in Japan). My father stops with us and we look at some of the intricate stamps. As we walk on, I fall further behind. I hear Kara say to the others, "Where's Elizabeth?".

I call out that I'm still there, but no-one hears me.

I felt devastated by this dream - both at the time and in recall. It came the day before my meeting with my mothers group where Gavin came along and met them for the first time. One of the hardest grief dreams so far.

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.

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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.

early April 2010

Gavin is driving me home to Ranzau Road (my first home, to age 12) in an old car. He passes it but instead of turning around to drive back, he reverses for about 1km. I say, "This is like a dream". I pick up the big heavy key and enter to find it really squalid inside - rubbish piled up. Dad is around somewhere. I'm tense.

11/12 APRIL, 2005

DGH and I are swimming in the big W. College pool. He is unclothed.
This swim session is part of the ' psychedelia' class I'm taking with Grace - we both wear red miniskirts with black 'fungus' stockings (the type I did wear in winter as part of the school uniform).

I swim three lengths underwater - a failed attempt to impress DGH.

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River swimming; naked torso.

I'm towing the corpse of a woman, against the current. Trying to impress AM with my physical and mental stamina, but I can't keep hiding my horror.

MARCH 2005

Tahuna, Nelson.
Big black warm moist horse. Fronds on stick.
Wading into the sea with torches, looking for sharks.