Dream on

What explains our dreams?
     I’m renowned for the intensity and fantasticality of mine, for dreams where I’m trying to in vain reach loves ones who have died and can’t because I’ve lost their phone numbers or the numbers have been disconnected, as well as for the occasional screaming nightmare (indeed, I woke up everyone in the dormitory room at Zealand Falls Hut last weekend yelling for help to get away from a dreamed assailant).
     But some are more Fellini-esque than others.
     I just had one where I was in uncharted territory on a mountainside, where there were deep crevasses and mossy boulders and each step had to be calculated to avoid doom. I was accompanied by a man who seemed to be some sort of guide, who wore a cowboy hat and looked a little like Sam Elliott (be still my heart) and whose name, I swear, was Teachable. But I was also accompanied by a dwarf named Mona who, when we got down from the mountain, took me into a Dunkin’ Donuts and tried to get me more information about safe climbs.
     What can it possibly mean? That even I, at 64, am “teachable” about mountain survival? That short legs are no excuse for not trying? That I should stop eating spicy food before I go to sleep?
     Who knows? Got any ideas or dreams of your own to share, let me know.
     I’m teachable.