Lately, I've had some very strange and vivid dreams. Perhaps it has something to do with my crash. Or the pandemic might've brought them on: I've heard other people say they've been having "weird dreams" and "nightmares" since COVID-19 ravaged cities and countries.
There are two other times when I can recall such deep, detailed night voyages, if you will: During the weeks and months after my gender reassignment surgery and in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
My post-surgery dreams--some of which were beautiful--may have had something to do with the anesthetics and other drugs. On the other hand, what I experienced in late 2001 and through much of 2002 (and on a few later occasions) may have been a reaction to the pain and grief I experienced around me. Other people, I learned, also had odd and terrifying dreams during that time, so in that sense our psyches (and, in some cases, our bodies) were responding to the attacks in the same way many of us would process the current pandemic.
Some of my dreams involved bicycling to places that weren't physical locations as much as they were rapidly-changing series of images. In others, I would retrieve a bicycle--which I may or may not have ridden or owned in my waking life--in places I'd never anticipate, like the house of someone I knew in the dream, or some place that looked like a bunker or butcher shop. Or I was trying to retrieve something--or even a person--while riding my bike.
I rarely talk about my dreams with anyone, though a few have figured, one way or another, into my writing. I am mentioning them now because 19 years ago, the last event (before the current pandemic) that "changed everything" took place. I am talking, of course, about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Although I did not know anyone who died, or was even injured in them, it was impossible to escape the grief and sadness if you were here in New York. Someone I'd never seen before, and haven't seen since, cried on my shoulder. Someone else--an old riding buddy--rode to the site and stayed for three weeks afterward, helping in any way he could. (He was a welder and metalworker.) One night, he called me, in tears. I told him he'd done more than anyone had a right to expect of him, and he should go home and spend time with his girlfriend.
He did. Others didn't, though. Some of them--messengers, food deliverers or others who would now be called "essential workers"--locked their bikes to a rack by the Towers. A year later, only one of those bikes was retrieved.
Perhaps I was trying to retrieve one of them in the dreams I've mentioned. Or, perhaps, one of them was me.
There are two other times when I can recall such deep, detailed night voyages, if you will: During the weeks and months after my gender reassignment surgery and in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
My post-surgery dreams--some of which were beautiful--may have had something to do with the anesthetics and other drugs. On the other hand, what I experienced in late 2001 and through much of 2002 (and on a few later occasions) may have been a reaction to the pain and grief I experienced around me. Other people, I learned, also had odd and terrifying dreams during that time, so in that sense our psyches (and, in some cases, our bodies) were responding to the attacks in the same way many of us would process the current pandemic.
Some of my dreams involved bicycling to places that weren't physical locations as much as they were rapidly-changing series of images. In others, I would retrieve a bicycle--which I may or may not have ridden or owned in my waking life--in places I'd never anticipate, like the house of someone I knew in the dream, or some place that looked like a bunker or butcher shop. Or I was trying to retrieve something--or even a person--while riding my bike.
I rarely talk about my dreams with anyone, though a few have figured, one way or another, into my writing. I am mentioning them now because 19 years ago, the last event (before the current pandemic) that "changed everything" took place. I am talking, of course, about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Although I did not know anyone who died, or was even injured in them, it was impossible to escape the grief and sadness if you were here in New York. Someone I'd never seen before, and haven't seen since, cried on my shoulder. Someone else--an old riding buddy--rode to the site and stayed for three weeks afterward, helping in any way he could. (He was a welder and metalworker.) One night, he called me, in tears. I told him he'd done more than anyone had a right to expect of him, and he should go home and spend time with his girlfriend.
He did. Others didn't, though. Some of them--messengers, food deliverers or others who would now be called "essential workers"--locked their bikes to a rack by the Towers. A year later, only one of those bikes was retrieved.
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| Bike rack at 9/11 Memorial |
Perhaps I was trying to retrieve one of them in the dreams I've mentioned. Or, perhaps, one of them was me.
