Carole Connection

Rosh Hashana Weds. September 8, 2010
Written upon awakening.

The workman drilled holes through walls, smack dab in the middle of them, not the bottom or top as might be expected, holes for a cable wire although I didn't know what they'd connect to, the roof from a hole in the middle of the wall? the men supposedly working in my home because a new ordinance said I had to raise the roof for a new building code. They were noisy but nice and they kept showing me their business cards with phone numbers to call the boss, Nautilus, to take up the issue of their being in my house, making a ruckus, drilling through the walls, the center of the gypsum boards. In the dream my house more like your former one on 64 Street, In my dream, the phone line was always busy. During one of my attempts to reach Nautilus, I heard a conversation with a another guy, crossed wires, he leaving a message, not vile or angry but saying he was trying to reach the owner too … I handed to phone to one of the workers at my house … then Nautilus called me, saying everything was all right, he’d take care of things, not to worry. Nautilus from the sea, telling me he’d take care of things, reassuring, Nautilus from the sea the same sea we’d scattered your ashes into, Nautilus, a species surviving relatively unchanged for millions of years.

After a while you called, but there was so much noise, two little girls running around me, and the counter where the phone was, two daughters of the workers, who were using loud tools. I wanted your phone number, told you I’d had been trying to reach you for days, telling you I’d up been cooking until 3. You started to give it to me but I couldn’t read my own writing, and the paper I was writing on, the one in front of me, was loaded with doodads, and the pen was near dry, barely inked. I said hold on, when I came back you fudged with the phone number, gave me a few false starts, one beginning with a 500, like the 800 free calls … then said you couldn’t make it over, asking who would pick up Daniel, Agustin? You didn’t want to see Agustin, no way — I said Josh would get him, and you said OK, you’d come since Josh would pick up Danny in his car and bring him to my house.

You were frightened, hesitant, didn’t want to be seen.

Our older sister had been over earlier and I demanded that she leave even as she had looked innocuous, like her 30 year old self. Mom’s presence was a distant hint in the yonder.

Mostly I’d wanted you and your phone number you finally gave it to me, it began with a 271—had a 6 in it, maybe your former number that I no longer remember? Then you said you’d come…you were still mulling it over, I could tell, still thinking but so close to yes even as the background between us on the phone was obtrusive and distracting.

Then in real time I awoke to the sounds of lawn mowing outside and I was in tears, and in real time, Madeline called minutes later, unusual for her to phone that time of the morning. She was the ONLY person I could talk to just then, in real life, synchronicity, our friend Madeleine the real time connector who’d truly understand … and I told her about Nautilus from the sea, telling me he’d take care of things, the same sea home to your scattered ashes, that freeing sea.