I'm okay Mom and Dad...really...

Having not slept well since school let out for vacation last Friday, I took one of those generic PM pills (like Tylenol PM or Excedrin PM) because I could feel myself getting grumpy and lazy and laconic and one should not be any of those things on vacation...well, except maybe lazy, but by choice, not as a reaction to insomnia.

And I slept. Hard. My dreams were amazingly complicated. I woke up at one point and thought to myself, "You should remember this dream" because it was comical and colorful and satisfying. I didn't remember it, of course, partly because of the heavy sleep, but partly because we were rattled from our beds by the sound of 4 loud and fast gunshots at 3:30.

(Don't worry Mom and Dad, we're fine...)

I jumped out of bed, ran to the phone and called 911 before Ann even understood what was happening. The shots were close, like right at the end of the block close and since we've been on Neighborhood Watch with the dodgy characters who live in the tan house at the end of the block that we can see from our new kitchen window, I knew close was just one house away.

When the police dispatch officer asked for my address, I realized then I was shaking, not so much out of fear, more due to the fact that I was in such a deep sleep the gunshots were more like ice cold water on my belly than frightening. Ann and I watched out our bedroom window as the police arrived (rather quickly) and then proceeded to investigate a car that (I learned this morning) had been shot at, the stray bullets landing on our other neighbor's porch who live next door to the tan house of thugs.

Everyone is fine, no one was hurt...that we know of...but it made it hard to fall back asleep as we listened to police radios and car engines and camera shutters document the report.

We appear to be in the middle of a turf war between rival drug gangs...the usual crips and bloods, but also another group like the Dominion or the Lords or the Diciples (I can never remember their names)...are fighting over the Central District. There are a lot of blue shirts huddled at the park and then red shirts by the small neighborhood grocery, and now white shirts hanging out at the tan house down the street.

Everything feels a bit desperate. As the gentrification of the neighborhood continues with the most recent influx of "urban pioneers" the gangs are increasing their visibility and more acts of violence have followed. More and more drug houses are being shut down, torn down in fact, and townhomes are being built lickty-split in their place. It's as if the gangs are making one last stand on who will control the neighborhood, but they just keep shooting at each other (at this point), which seems a bit misguided and short-sighted.

I doubt, though, that any of them are planning their 40th birthday parties or dreaming about kids and a nice house.

Despite the activity last night (actually early this morning) I did fall back to sleep and once again dove into dreamworld only this time I remember my dream...

I was hiking with a bunch of students and staff from school. I had on a backpack heavy with my school computer, my digital camera containing all sorts of school pictures, and mountains of papers I needed to grade. I was hiking along a narrow trail, bushes up to my armpits so that I had to carry my arms above my head so I didn't get scraped. I was stressed, walking a fast pace not because I wanted to, but because I had to. People were behind me and as I forged through the underbrush I heard someone yell, "Watch out!" I looked down just as I stepped off a ledge and plunged into a muddy, cold lake backpack and all.

And I kept falling down, neverending, weighted down with my life's work strapped onto my back. At that moment, I realized I was in a dream. "This doesn't happen in real life," I told myself. "Lakes have bottoms and I'm a good swimmer. This is a dream." Every anxiety I felt in that dream vanished. I was no longer in a panic that I would drown, that I would never hit the bottom so that I could push myself back up. I was no longer burdened by the responsibility of all the people following me, of all the work to do and still undone in my pack. "This is a dream," I kept saying to myself and then I tried to breathe. Cool air filled my lungs. "Of course I can breathe underwater...I can do anything in a dream."

And that's when it hit me..."Let go of the backpack!" I wriggled out of it and heard myself laugh as I watched it float down into the darkness of the bottomless lake. "This is it," I told myself. "No more dreams about school. I'm letting it all go."

When the alarm went off, I hit snooze 3 times before Ann said, "I still have to go to school today, I better get up."

So we got up, drank our hot beverages, ate some cereal, checked out the damage to the shot out car and then I drove Ann into work for her last day of school. Despite our early morning 911 emergency, I feel better today -- more rested, more relaxed, and less driven to get "things done" that I feel should be done right away.

I don't know what to make of it all -- the gunshots, the dreams and even the crow that slammed into Ann's head while she was taking out the garbage this morning (protecting her nest, I think, but hard to say) -- but today is distinctly better than yesterday and for now, that's all that matters...