From the Back Porch

 

Hayter for September 1, 2024

Late night view from the Back Porch

            First off, it’s not cool out here. It’s toasty. Not burned toast, just lightly browned. There are a few mosquitoes out here, but there would be a lot more if Kay was here. Mosquitoes love that girl. They’re only moderately pleased with me. -- You? It’s hard to tell from where you’re sitting.

            I was with a friend last week who commented on how fast summer has moved along. In three more weeks, it’s over. It’ll still be hot as blue blazes, but the calendar will indicate that summer is gone. So, two months from now we may experience some coolness. Hard to say.

            I’m going to shine my flashlight on the cedar fence to your left, so you can see the passion vine. It’s lovely. Not passionately so, it’s got a lovely bloom. It’s a blue mum-looking flower that you’ve gotta see. – Beg pardon? Oh, my flashlight. Here goes. See! – Oh my word. I forgot that the blooms close up at night. I don’t know why. God seldom explains things to me. If you want to wait around, we can see tomorrow morning.

            We got some needed rain last week. Have you noticed that we’ve never heard the song “August Showers”? Three of the Hayter kids were born in August. This was before air conditioning, so Mom delivered us outdoors. I remember nothing good about my birth. I’m sure Mom was less than pleased, too.

            At the moment, three of you are wondering why I brought you out here. Well, before I share it with you, I need to make a serious point. Ready? -- I hate hearing people tell me about their dreams. -- I can handle maybe a sentence or two, but to sit through the details is impossible. In the words of Jack Nicholson from “A Few Good Men”  -- “I would rather you just said ‘thank you’, and went on your way.”

            So, with that behind us, I feel a need to tell you about a dream I had two nights ago. It had something to do with me being lost. I haven’t had that many “lost” dreams. This one had me stymied. So much so, that earlier this morning, I got online in the hope of finding a mind doctor who could explain the meaning of dreams. Right off, I found Kari Samuel, a specialist with the title “International Intuitive Counselor & Happiness Coach”. The “Happiness” part drew me right in.

            Right there on my screen, was a list of explanations for 13 different common dreams about being lost. And low and behold, I found mine: A dream about “Being lost in a shopping mall. I kid you not.

            In my dream, I was trying to find my brothers and sisters Larry, Susan, Dennis, Jill, and Big Al. We had just entered the largest shopping mall on the planet. It was spread out across the  boundaries of three bordering states – Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. No, I don’t know why, so don’t ask.

            We were in there for just a few minutes before I got lost and separated from the crew. I sensed that they walked away while I was looking for popcorn. Malls use to have places where you could get buy popped corn. Just like my siblings, the popcorn was also out of sight. I went all over that place trying to find my family. Actually, that’s an exaggeration. No way could I have walked across that mall in three hours.

            For whatever reason I hadn’t brought my cell phone with me. If they had theirs it was doing them no good. What was I to do, cross over to Indiana and ask them to page my brothers and sisters? No, what I did for the entire duration of my dream was to stop strangers and ask if they had seen a group of three relatively old guys walking along with two less-than-young ladies.   

            I’ve read that a dream has a short life. A few minutes or seconds. This one seemed to go on all night. I never knew if we accidentally got separated or if they intentionally left me. I had high hopes that Ms. Samuel could help me. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for her assessment of my situation..

Here’s some of what she wrote: “Being lost in a mall could be a sign that you need to reconsider your inner circle.  If you desperately tried to find your way out of the mall, your dream might indicate that you’re unhappy with your friend group. Your subconscious mind might be encouraging you to distance yourself from your group of friends. I don’t congregate with that many friends at the mall, so she was obviously referring to my brothers and sisters.

Regardless, I think she missed this one. The way I see it, my dream showed that I my brothers and sisters are distancing themselves from me! Over the years, we’ve definitely grown further apart. While I don’t care to ask any one of them to move in with me, I am missing the occasions when we spent time together. Now if any of them had a similar dream to mine, I would interpret it to mean that they wanted to steer clear of me. I’ve always had this feeling of inferiority. I’ll have to talk to Ms. Samuel about that. We’re on a first-name basis.

By the way, Ms. Samuel interpreted 13 different getting-lost-dreams. – Among them were getting lost in school, in town, in a haunted house, in a maze, in a crowd, in a forest, or while driving. Now as a teacher, I dreamt about being lost while trying to find my class, as well as getting lot while driving. 

            Kari’s last example of lostness had to do with me trying to find Kay, only she didn’t mention Kay by name. It matters not, because my lovely wife is always within yelling distance… which is both good and bad. With that in mind, I’d best get back in the house before I get yelled at. – Next time.          

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