Dream Diary - Lost in the Parking Lot

Thursday night, I had another dream of being lost. At the beginning of the dream, I had just bought a new car. It was kind of a smallish, green car, similar to the 1997 Grand Am I used to own, but not quite.

I was driving my new car along a highway and started into a bend in the road. I was going too fast and the car began to skid. I was trying to steer out of the skid, but then the dream jumped forward.

Evidently I didn’t crash, because next I was at work. One of my supervisors from UPS was there, and a couple of other people I worked with but we were in something like a classroom with my supervisor at the teacher's desk. I don't remember very much of that part, but then it was time to go home.

I had parked my new car in a parking lot a few blocks away from work and here’s where the trouble began.

I got to the parking lot and started looking for my car, but I couldn’t find it. There were quite a few smallish green cars in the lot, but none of them were mine. On one side of the lot was something like an apartment building, and on the other side of that was more parking area. I went over there to look around and was disturbed to see that this lot looked very much like the other one. Well, that lot was connected to another one, and so on, and so on. All the lots looked the same, and they all had smallish green cars.

At one point, I ran into a guy I used to work with. I was happy because I thought he might help me, even though I didn’t know him very well. We started talking, but then he went over and started talking to some other people and forgot about me.

I spent some more time looking, and then ran into some other people I knew. It was a couple of my high school classmates, Craig Shiers, and his cousin Matt Shiers. I thought for sure they would help me, but again, they went off with some other people and left me there.

At one point, I pulled out my cell phone, thinking the battery would probably be dead. I was surprised to find it had a full charge and a strong signal, but I never used it. I couldn’t think of anyone to call who might be able to help me. I considered calling the police and reporting the car stolen, then just waiting for them to find it and call me back. I didn't though. The car was new and had no license plates, and I thought they probably wouldn't be able to find it because of that. There was also a brief moment when I didn't think I would be able to use the phone because I was blind, even though I could see perfectly well. The old blindness always seems to seep into my dreams.

So I just wandered from parking lot to parking lot, looking for my new car. Sometimes the neighborhoods seemed a little rough, with seedy looking characters lurking about. This frightened me, but they never bothered me.

Well, like I said before, I frequently have dreams where I feel lost and alone. This was just another variation on the theme. I wonder what the new car was about. Getting a new car and almost crashing it, then losing it. Two bad dreams in one week, yuck.

Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Poem - Stranger In My Home

Hi there. I debated about this for a while, but finally decided to post this in my blog. Over the years, I have dabbled a little in poetry. I only dabbled because I’m not very good at it. Joni is the poet of the family, and I’m okay with that.

I debated about it because I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. It’s kind of a dark poem, but I promise I’m not suicidal or anything. I finally decided to post it because, like it or not, it’s a part of me, and that’s what my blog is all about; me, and my journey through life.

A few of the lines from this poem started running around in my head a few years ago, but I never made a serious attempt to capture them and write them down. Interestingly, it has been my blindness that gave me some new insights on it and helped me complete it.

So anyway, here’s my poem. Just don’t read too much into it, okay?

Stranger In My Home
By Steven Brandt
December 11, 2009

Who is this stranger in my home?
Who haunts these rooms when I’m alone?
A faceless ghoul to harry me,
A nameless face I cannot see.

I hear the voices laugh and cry,
They disappear when I walk by.
“Get out of here, just go away!”
I hear the words they’ll never say.

These ghosts will be the death of me
If I cannot escape or flee.
Would they still mock if I were gone?
Or would their job on earth be done?

I wander ‘round my rooms by dark
When living seems like much less work.
There is no hope or end in sight,
I’m just a creature of the night.

I find a door and enter through,
The hall of glass reveals the truth.
And in the mirror, the face I see,
The stranger in my home is me.

Copyright 2009 Steven Brandt