contemplativeIn the dream last night I was alternately driving and hiking on the side of the hill, as I did many times in the three-and-a-half years working there. Some obstacles, but nothing too onerous (and sometimes the obstacles were funny; I like when my dreams are amusing, like this time).
I've dreamed this environment before, while I was still working there. Often there's a built-in delay to what environments my dream-self creates: I leave an area and start to dream a version of it. (This happened vividly with the Northeast Oregon desert, a version of it which I started dreaming about after moving from there to here.) It took a few years of living in this distinctive part of Southeast Portland (with the Brooklyn rail yard on the east side and McLaughlin Blvd. on the west side, making my neighborhood narrow and slightly industrial in its feel) for me to start seeing a dream-version. Marquam Hill, also known as Pill Hill for the several hospitals atop it, was a big part of my life for the past three-and-a-half years; I started there with a week-long temp job at the School of Nursing in October 2004, with my transcription job beginning a month later.
I kind of hope that, if there's some connection to dreaming this dream-place and any lingering issues I have with the job I used to do up there, I can work through those issues and just appreciate the dream-environment as a dream-environment. I don't know what the meaning, if any, of this recurring thing is, but then I don't really know the significance of my other dream-environments, either. I accept them and go on. I'd rather dream than not dream, after all. And it's not like the part of my life that involved Pill Hill can "un-happen" so that I never think about it again. I wouldn't want that, either.
"Accept it and go on." Not a bad guide. I've used it for years.
