I guess that the earliest memories I have are of a vacation my family took out on the Cape in the late fifties. It was raining hard and warm, and I remember splashing around in the cold salt waves, tripping and slipping in pursuit of an under-inflated beachball. There was sand in my hair. That's all that comes to me.
But. Sometimes, when I'm waking in the morning (it happened today, in fact), another piece comes to me that doesn't quite fit in. It shows up between the first bruising shot of morning light and complete wakefulness, the splinter of twilight sleep when I think about how it's time to start the day, I have to get up now or I'll fall back to sleep, run late, and it will take the rest of the day to catch back up. . .
There are patches of snow on the ground, but not much. How much I'm not sure, because for some reason, I can't look very far to my left, or to my right at all. In front of me is broken, black earth sheathed with a glossiness of frost. At the limit of my vision is a line of hills with a few scraggly, leafless trees stretching their bare branches in supplication to a clear pale blue, almost white, uncaring sky. Between, I think that there must be a river or at least a pond, because I can see some hard, motionless curls of mist standing in the air. I can't tell if it is late autumn or early spring; I don't know how you can tell.
The ground is broken with shards of earth, some with one shiny surface, scattered about. Plowed? Do farmers plow before it snows, after the harvest? Do they plow in the early spring, before the last snow, while there are still heavy frosts coming? I don't know, but I think that the answer to both questions is no. So, I think that seeing land that is plowed, and that has been frozen with without crops having been planted and harvested in between, is a sign of some problem. I can feel that much; there is some problem, but I don't know, or don't understand, what it is.
I don't see any stubble or chaff anywhere in the empty field. I see frost in my breath. My nose feels funny, like things grinding in it, gears twisting against gears; I've been out in the cold too long. Inside my heavy mittens, I can feel pins and needles of cold piercing my fingers. I can barely feel my right foot at all. I feel sad; I know that the world as I know it is going to come to an abrupt end soon. I don't know how it will, or how I know, or what will come about. My mother calls me. Her voice is clear and musical.
Sweetheart, sweetheart. It's too cold for little . . . . please come in. Come in now.
Oui Maman, je entre. What? What do I say?
I turn around and walk the few steps to the porch. As I raise my foot to take the first tread, I notice something shiny off to the left. I walk to a patch of ice at the end of the enclosed porch. At its edge is something sparkling. A gem? A piece of silver? I bend down to look more closely. It's a disc of metal with some relief on its surface - a coin or a medal. It's so cold out that I just grab it and stick it in my pocket; I'll have time to look at it later, when I'm inside where it is warm. Before I can straighten up, one of my pigtails slips out of my hood onto the ice. It's dark with a glint of red. As I stand back up and tuck it back in, I think that I'm glad that it is not the carroty orange of my sister Eleanor's hair.
New treasure in pocket, I run up the four steps to the outer door and quickly close it behind me. I fumble the mittens off of my numb hands, then open the door to the house proper. I slip inside. As the door closes, I smell bread baking. I always come fully awake at that point.
It's so clear, so vivid, I can't help but feel that it is an accurate memory of a real event. Unfortunately, it's not my memory. I was never a little girl on a farm in a place where it snows. I've only been in freezing weather for a total of less than ten hours - two ski trips to Mammoth Mountain. I've been to places - cities, mostly - where it does snow, but never in a season when it did. I don't think that I've ever actually stood in a plowed field at all; I've driven past farmland from time to time, but why would I have stopped?
Whenever I have this "dream," it never occurs to me that anything is not real until it is over. I try to reconstruct parts of it afterwards; I have slowly been building that world to where I can see it a little more clearly, but it fades so quickly that it's a long process. The side of the house that faces me is white; I have no idea as to what is on the other side of it, or even how large it is. Out from the side on which I stand, there are no roads, no electric lines, no structures. I don't know my name or what I look like. I know my voice and my mother's voice, but not her face. I have a sister Eleanor. I know that she's a carrot top, but not her appearance or whether she's older or younger than I. Do I have a father? Other siblings? I don't know, but I - the present-time, adult male I - feel that I (the past-time, little girl I) have both. My mother calls me and I answer in French(?). Or is it some other language that I just guess to be French? Flemish, or some language of Scandinavia? Does it freeze the ground solid in the Low Countries? In France? Does my mother call to me in French? I don't know. I hear her voice but not her words. I know what she wants and how she would ask it, but not the words. Not the words.
(*******************************************************)
"You did what?" He roars. His voice is as deep as any I have ever heard. The low pitch and the horrible volume make the scene surreal. I feel like I'm underwater, all movements around me are slow, as if caused by currents. Behind him, to his right is a slim, silver-haired woman (my mother? an aunt? I don't know). She gapes foolishly, like a fish. I see that she has beautiful, perfect teeth.
"Do you think that that was a wise thing to do?"
His voice is suddenly so much quieter that I think for an instant that my hearing was damaged by his recent shouting. But no, he seems to be calm now. His angry brow - a moment ago ready to spawn Venus upon the waves -is now smooth and relaxed. What an odd thought. The brow of Zeus? The woman behind him now has a tentative smile. I'm almost sure that she is my mother. Only a couple of days ago she made the analogy of my father, with his single massive black eyebrow, being the lord of Olympus, and I the young Aphrodite come ashore riding the seafoam. I remember that; I can almost hear her voice.
But not quite.
Is this the man she spoke of? The only thoughts I have just then are of contrition; I'm not thinking then about who is who, and so can't remember it now. I'm baffled twice by the same incident. If only someone would call another of the players by name, that would help a little. The smiling woman obliges.
"Shawl. . ." Is that his name? My name? Or something else altogether? "Can't you see how sorry she is?" I look at her, then quickly at him - and feel surprise. My not-now, not-here self is shaken. The present time I was the one who moved my (her?) head.
That's never happened before; I've only ever just watched and tried to comprehend. The present me is now also shaken.
If these are real events (And somehow I'm sure that they are.), I think that I have no business trying to influence any outcomes. I don't seem to be able to enter these states at will, but breaking out of them is easy - in fact it takes real effort to stay in them for more that a few seconds. I don't think that I can be hurt when I'm then and there. However, if I can run my host with impunity, then step out of her when the going gets rough, I could help to make her life very complicated and generally unpleasant. I'm briefly tempted.
"Yes child, I know that you now know your mistake -
" Damn, I got here late and I don't know what I'm being chastised for. I don't know, but I think that I'm still too young to have been enticed into something lewd. We
live too remotely - I think - for me to have committed some petty larceny. No one else appears to be about, so I don't think that the constable is involved in whatever
it is. Something to do with the stock? With the farm equipment? I can't think of any question I can ask about my misdoings that would not make me look disrespectful or
even insane, so I don't try to influence my earlier self.
Damn if she doesn't manage to surprise me.
"Mon Prer, I suddenly feel very strange." She touches her right index finger to her (our?) collar bone.
"As though I were not alone in here."
Something in her face must have changed. The beetle browed man looks concerned, bends toward her to look in her eyes. I see that his eyes are grey like ashes, I see the reflection of my nose - too pointy - and my chin - too square - in them. Then she tips back her head, I feel a shallow wash of something (satisfaction? assertiveness?) from her, and she collapses.
I'm suddenly back in the here and now. Or as here and now as I ever get. There's a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray in the middle of the table. I reach past the clutter of my breakfast remnants and pick it up. Have I started smoking again? There is only just my plate, I seem to be here alone. I take a drag. Am I back from where I drifted? Or have I stopped some other place, some other time? The smoke tastes too good for this to be an established habit.
I pat my pockets. No pack, no light. I must have bummed the cigarette off of another patron. I take a close look at it; it's a Galousie. [A Canadian brand]
Hmm. No use overdoing it; I stub it out and rise, look around. The place is a diner, vinyl everywhere. I seem to be the only customer. There's a sixtyish women sitting on a stool behind the register, her eyes closed.
I stand at the counter and clear my throat, she comes awake, I pay. As I push through the glass double doors I notice a small sign above them. Thank you for not smoking. I step outside into the morning sun, confused.
No smoking? In a restaurant? Why was there an ashtray? No smoking in a restaurant? But worded some gutless, sissy way. Not: don't smoke, but rather - if you abstained, then we offer our gratitude. In a restaurant? No smoking? I seem to have returned to the wrong world. The one I drifted from had slogans "like do your own thing" and "power to the people." Not one where the management gushed gratefully at you for not disturbing their tidiness, for not giving them a well-deserved beating.
What? What did I care if people restricted unpleasantness in their establishments? Was I carrying something back from my latest excursion? I walked past a barber shop. A sign in the window said hair cuts four dollars and up - that struck me as quite high. Another sign said Smoking Okay Here. What the hell?