100 Years of Solitude took me a week, then I followed it up with Garcia Marquez's Collected Stories. If you never have, read both of these at the same time. It's excellent. Characters who are mentioned in passing in the novel have their own story in the collection, and vice versa. One character even stars in both..her life being introduced in the novel and finished in a story.
My favorite short story has always been "Eyes of a Blue Dog"...there was an image in my head immediately connected with that phrase, but it has since been replaced with any of George Rodrigue's paintings in his Blue Dog series. Anyway, the story is about a man and a woman who dream of each other; their interaction is intimate but unromantic, they remember knowing each other from past dreams and inform the reader that the man is "the only man who doesn't remember anything of what he's dreamed after he wakes up." Eyes of a blue dog is their secret message to one another, or rather from the woman to the man in the awoken world. She writes it anywhere she can in hopes that he will see it and remember.
I thought about this story in the shower an hour ago. Last night, a friend told me she was reading 100 Years of Solitude and I recommended the book of Collected Stories, same as I have now. But more importantly - to me anyway - this morning I woke up from a dream about a tall boy with dirty blond hair. In the dream I knew his face, his name, his mannerisms, his sense of humor..I knew our history as a couple - but of course these are all things you forget when your phone sings to you from your nightstand and you squint at the phone number on the display before silencing the ringtone. I laid in bed thinking about this stranger I knew so well a few moments ago and remembered that it wasn't my first dream about him. A week, maybe two, ago I dreamt about another brown-and-blond-haired boy - but that dream started when we first got together, before skipping to us being a couple. I wouldn't have connected the two at all except that 1. I have never dated or been seriously attracted to anyone but dark-haired boys, and 2. In both dreams he made a gesture to me: different gestures but similar and under the same context.
I believe in dreams, I believe in their interpretations by the dreamer, and this isn't the first time I've dreamt of a recurring subject. I'll have to think about this one, maybe visit the dream interpreters at Farmer's Market, and whisper eyes of a blue dog to a few blond(ish)-haired boys.
2 comments:
i've been trying to hang out with cameron in my dreams. its only worked a couple times (on my end) but its usually non sensical. I've noticed that I don't have bad dreams really (maybe because there is a dream catcher in my hair?) but i have a lot of weird dreams, often. and sometimes those feel bad.
now i want to read those books. i've always wanted to read 100 yrs of solitude...but havent. and now that i'm better in spanish i want to read it in spanish but im worried that would be really hard.
i also really want to blog but there is so much going on that i dont know what to focus on.
and i feel too emotional to do it this minute.
but still. you've inspired me. hopefully soon ill post.
I wondered where your posts had gone!
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