01/25/04
I've Got The Whole World In My Hands


A confusing and messy dream which I didn't take notes for, but the imagery stuck with me for the most part.

I seemed to be involved in some sort of class trip, even though at first I think my brother Eric might have been with me. We might have been outside (green and overcast?), but then we went inside. There was this gift shop-type area. I knew I had some money with me, and I wanted to buy some things, but I didn't want to go overboard. So I started looking around to see what I might like the most. By now the only thing I can remember from the gift shop proper was this little pewter (?) figurine which I think was supposed to be Hiawatha or Manabozho (figures from northeastern Native American mythology) rowing a canoe. At least, it was an Indian chief-type person. This piqued my interest because while I'm not very interested in Hiawatha, I AM interested in Manabozho, and thanks to Longfellow the two have been hopelessly confused in literature. (In short, that person he refers to in his poem The Song Of Hiawatha is MUCH more closely based on Manabozho, the Ojibwa hero, rather than on the actual Hiawatha, the Iroquois hero.) I rather get the feeling the man in the canoe was supposed to be Hiawatha, but the two are so confused nowadays that it didn't matter much, I knew it could go either way. This sat on a shelf upon which was a stand and some other items for sale. There were windows behind it, to my right (I think the entrance was ahead of me and to my left, meaning I had turned around to see this). I was tempted, but decided not to buy it. It was just a pewter figurine. There must be some much more interesting things around here.

I started walking toward the back of the gift shop; it was light and airy in here, not huge, but not all cluttered like it could have been. It got a little more rundown looking back here as they were selling used goods. I'm not sure if it was in the gift shop proper or in a back area which came out of it, but I started looking at used CDs and books which were now available. There were other students with me (I was in school, I guess) and they too were looking at everything, and every time I wanted to browse it seems like they got there first. :( I felt very shy in the dream, like in real life, and if I can avoid contact with people I will. Meaning, even though I had seen the CDs first and wanted to go look at them, now that there were OTHER people there, I didn't do so. I decided to wait until they were done, which meant they would get all the good choices.

Well, they pretty much did...*sigh* There was this one stand near the same wall as the Hiawatha figurine and it had a case with some CDs and cassettes in it. They were all pretty old, like from the Eighties, and I noticed that a lot of the CDs featured metal "hair bands" from back then. I'd seen this stand first and there might've been something I wanted to get but the other students moved in and I had to wait. As they started to disperse I nudged my way forward and saw that most of the hair band CDs remained, but I wasn't very interested in them as they didn't have bands I liked. It looked as if most of the cassettes hadn't been touched--they were below the CDs--but lately I've switched to CDs so I was not interested in those. The other CDs which had looked mildly interesting were gone. Taken by the other students, obviously. *sigh*

Feeling a bit crestfallen, I continued looking around. Now I seemed to enter another, much bigger room like that at the K of C, where they hold bingo on certain nights. It was big and open with a kind of low ceiling, tannish carpeting, kind of cream-colored walls maybe which looked as if they could be taken out to make the room bigger or smaller (I'm just guessing, not certain about all of this), and bright fluorescent lighting. There was a big bookshelf or two in the very back lefthand corner of the room and I went over there with great interest. Books! My favorite! Maybe I'd find something worth spending my money on after all.

By now, I can't even remember what was on the shelf! >_< But I do know that I was interested. Oh yes, now I remember a little. There were likely books but there was also this little stand to the left of them (if they were there) and it had some CD collections on it. Probably used, but they were in these boxes, like sets of two or three. There were some instrumental/easy listening-type CDs, but most were of the nature sounds and music/therapeutic music variety--you know, New Agey stuff. I believe one three-CD boxed set had a light blue box with pastel designs, like clouds or birds or something, and some of the sets were supposed to be music that could help you relax, get rid of stress, deal with mild physical ailments, etc. In real life I don't find this to be the BEST music in the world, but I was still interested in the dream, some New Agey music can be pretty good, and I had some money to spend so why not take a look.

But then these OTHER students got in my way again! I especially remember one, Shawna M., who was always a goodie-goodie at school and then for the city newspaper. She was a nice person, but a perfectionist, and what's more she wasn't a perfect one; I read one of her articles in the newspaper and it left much to be desired. >_< She's not a bad person but for some reason she irritated me. Well, in my dream I believe she got to the CD stand before I did and selected from these New Age sets and probably took one I wanted to look at. I didn't even get to read what was on the box! I was so upset. I think there were still some CDs--and probably some books on the other shelf--remaining, but before I could look at them a woman who had appeared called us to go sit at some tables that had been put out. Apparently class or whatever had started.

I gave a heavy sigh and trudged back to the tables. I would never get to find something interesting to buy. What a ripoff this trip had been. I sat down at one of the long tables and stared at the floor sadly. The woman was a teacher or instructor of some sort, thin and mildly pretty, though her nose or mouth or something might have been a little too big. She had black hair, I believe, long and curly/wavy; her looks might have been Jewish. All I'm almost positive of is her hair. I knew she was wise and a good person, maybe a little strict, but I still resented that she had called us away from the stands just as I was about to look for something to buy. I didn't want to leave this trip emptyhanded! Why couldn't she have let us look a little bit longer? I knew that if I got the chance to return, the others would of course beat me to it and there would be nothing good left. I felt very frustrated, and angry with her in particular.

I'm not sure what she was talking about, but apparently it was a lesson or something. She then got this smallish cardboard box and started to come around to us with it. She held it out and said something like, "Take only one, so there should be enough for everybody."

I lifted my head to look at the box as she approached. I sat on the far left end of the table, nearer the wall and facing the (back of the) room (I was sitting on the seat backwards--they were those long folding tables with the seats attached to them, like in cafeterias), so I was the very first person she came to. And I noticed that this little box was filled with...orbs of all sizes and colors. I stared at them in surprise. Although they were all small, they ranged from slightly bigger than a golf ball to maybe marble sized. All of those on top appeared to be golden or gold tinged with other colors, but I knew there were all sorts of them. They were made of meshed wire/metal and maybe some other materials like glass; the ones on top were the former. There was a whole box of them!

I stared at them briefly before stretching out my hand. I had the urge to dig around, sort through the box until I had found the PERFECT globe, but I knew that would irritate all the other students. So I just managed to grab the one on top. It was about as big as a golf ball or a tangerine. I pulled my hand back and inspected it as the person to my right--maybe Shawna?--selected another. Hers was smaller than mine, but it was of a similar make--like wire mesh, gold colored, hollow (light entered through it, but it was a dense mesh). It might have been the size of a large marble. It had some other color or pattern on it, like metallic teal or something--I think it had the shapes of the continents of Earth on it--and for a moment I was again incredibly jealous. She had gotten a better ball than I had. Of course! Today, EVERYBODY was getting all the good things, while I was left with the junk and the leftovers.

But...I hadn't even given my own ball a good looking over yet, had I? I turned to look at my own little globe. It, too, was that gold wire mesh...so very plain...but as I turned it around in my hand I looked it over more closely. Was that a pattern I saw there...? I frowned and held it up to my face to get a better look. At first I noticed just a bit of shimmering of metallic teal--my favorite color! Wasn't that nice? My orb had some coloration on it too, and it was my favorite color. It couldn't be that bad! Then I noticed that there were denser areas on it where the gold mesh seemed either thicker or solid, I believe, and these patterns formed...the shapes of the continents. They were hard to make out at first, and didn't really resemble the real continents, but I knew that's what they were. This thing was a tiny globe of Earth! Surprised and delighted, I turned the ball around to see more. Yes...there was North America and the United States...right there! I started seeking Michigan, my home state. At first I could not see it--it was like they had just made the whole continent solid like there was no Michigan, as the globe was too small to permit tiny details...but I looked even MORE closely...and there it was! It was somewhat misshapen, more like a projection than a mitt, but I could make out the Great Lakes, Michigan and Huron, surrounding it! My home state, on my own little globe! The water glittered around it in teal. (I don't remember seeing Superior, Ontario, or Erie, or the Upper Peninsula for that matter--just the Lower Peninsula, where I live.) I gave a huge grin. This little orb wasn't so bad after all! Sure, it probably wasn't the best in the box, but at the moment it was the best for me. We were being given these by the instructor as part of our course, so I didn't pay for it, but I didn't care. This was MUCH better than a pewter figure or an old CD!

As we sat here I think I realized I could smush the orb somewhat, since it was mesh and hollow. (In real life I have this little gold metal wire thing...all I can compare it to is a cat's cradle...you stretch it out and it can form like a flower or an orb, depending on how you bend its sides, or you can flatten it into a donut shape. I think this reminded me of that.) I did this, flattening the globe, but then puffed it back out. I noticed that I had damaged it just slightly. :/ It had like a hole at both poles now (they hadn't been there before, to my knowledge, but I hadn't created them--it's like they were supposed to be there), which allowed the orb to be flattened, but I had maybe bent a tiny bit of the mesh, and I distinctly remember a tiny prick or puckering in the side which wouldn't entirely smooth out, almost like a little hole poked in something. I decided not to do that again, just to avoid damaging my precious globe further. Despite my earlier reservations, I was very happy to have this.

Well, I would like to say the dream ended happily, but there was more to it and it grew unpleasant. Apparently I took the globe home with me and set it somewhere, temporarily forgetting about it. When I later came back Cosmas, the cat, had gotten hold of it and was chewing it and batting it around the house like it was one of his toys. I grabbed it from him in dismay and looked it over. The globe itself was okay, but...all the golden shimmer of the mesh, and the metallic teal sparkle, had practically been rubbed off so it was now a dull, tarnished, uniform brassy color. And the little shapes of the continents, which I had marveled over before, were gone as well. To summarize, it was just a drab, boring, wire-mesh globe.

I believe I started crying, I was so upset. I sat there and held this dull little orb in my hands and rubbed it and turned it over and over, hoping to restore some of its former beauty, but it had all been worn off. I was angry with Cosmas and wanted to punish him, but I didn't. I was the one who'd neglected the thing and so this was my fault. But I wasn't so much angry as grieved. The little globe had been so beautiful before, I'd felt like it was special, like it had been meant for me alone--I had found it boring and disappointing at first, but then it had become beautiful, and I just KNEW I had been meant to pick that particular ball. Now it was just this dull thing that anyone could have picked out and I was so upset that it had come to this. :(



2004 Dreams
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