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Baggage DreamsApril 15, 2010 Generally I remember only snatches of dreams, and they fade quickly if I don't write them down, which I don't. Sometimes, though, dreams recur enough to make an impression. Like these, from the early 1980s. When I talk about metaphorical baggage, the unwanted, unwieldy mental or emotional stuff that's so hard to get rid of, my images are quite literal. Yes, this is from To Be Rather Than to Seem. The project's working subtitle is A Writer's Education, but so far it hasn't been much about my writing. That's starting to change. Working on a piece about how I moved to Martha's Vineyard, I pulled an old essay of mine off the shelf: "Azalea: A Short Meditation on Letting Go," published in the autumn 1984 issue of the quarterly journal Common Lives / Lesbian Lives (no. 13). Wow. I remembered "Azalea" as being about letting go of my New Englander-in-exile identity by acknowledging that I really did live in D.C. What comes through most strongly now is the writer's longing for home. As it turned out, she got rid of her exile identity by returning to Massachusetts. I'd been meaning to write about my baggage dreams, and wonder of wonders, here they are in "Azalea," more vivid and detailed than I remember them now. Here they are, slightly revised. I am on a bus with my father and my sister. Outside it is spring, light green, sunny, brisk, beautiful. It's a city bus we're on, and what we're rolling down looks like D.C.'s Constitution Avenue, but there are overhead racks and they're full of our luggage. I get up, tell them I'm getting off here, and, leaving my bags behind, get out. Another bus pulls up behind. I head for it. I am outside a train station. My train is coming soon. I have an enormous trunk, but it is in a nearby building. My father and my sister were with me, but they have disappeared. I am frantic. I can't manage the trunk by myself. I have to get on the train. I wake up, sweating. I am outside a train station with an enormous trunk. My train is approaching the station. I can hear it. My father and my sister are nowhere to be found. I am frantic. Who will help me with my huge trunk? I have to get on the train. I open the trunk, pick out what I need, and stow it in my backpack. I run for the train.
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