Dreamways

A much more interesting piece than I’d anticipated. (The fellow just ahead of us in line asked the teller for two tickets to ¨quince anera¨, a perfect English language take on the Spanish word!  read more »

Sleep Dream. I meet a young fellow downtown. At H&H?  His name is Chris Jaunarājs. He is in his mid twenties. Physically the gestalt of Uldis, but his face is longer, less square, his straight hair brownish blond. He speaks no Latvian. He is new in town, from Rhode Island. He is gay. Very friendly, outgoing. We discuss our common surname. I tell him that it is totally amazing that a third strand of Jaunarājs is in Denver.  read more »

Londonderry. Sunday morning. The sky is gray. It seems quiet in this neck of the woods. I feel rested, in spite of having been awake for a chunk of the night, with dinner washing around the sour edges of my stomach and thoughts backwashing around the sour edges of my mind.
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Londonderry. The Sleep Inn is filled with teenaged girls, in town for a softball tournament. Lots of tromping and gallumphing back and forth in the hall, up and down the stairs on the other side of our headboard. F sez that this caravanserai is managed, if not owned, by East Indians.  read more »

Late Saturday afternoon. Hot, but not in the triple digits. An odd sort of cloud cover this afternoon has helped keep the swelter at a bearable level. Farmers‘ Market this morning and then out to Arvada with half of it for Bret and Rachel. Daila and mom have worked the nursing routine out. Baby‘s feedings are now just on teat, no more finger and syringe. Daila looks much less jaundiced, has more roundness to her face. She slept the most soundly I’ve seen her do, as I held her in my lap.  read more »

Friday afternoon. An odd covering of dark gray clouds has blessedly covered up the relentless sun, that earlier registered a misery-inducing 100 degrees on a public display thermometer that we passed. We visited the Arvada homestead this morning. Alice was there. She and I engaged in our first conversation ever, focusing on Minerva passing and Daila arriving. Interesting, her breathy, baby‘s voice, her avoiding eye contact. As we conversed, I noticed that her chunky body, her skin coloration, the squareness of her face remind me of Zaiga.  read more »

 El día de padre. También, el cumpleañs de F. A day of double significance fo my Lover Boy. It strikes me as I write that no one in the Familie Jaunarājs was in their body. Zaiga absolutely was not, with her obesity, her catastrophic teeth, her hidden eating, her dread of touch. Armīns did much better in terms of maintaining his body, but he had his rampant phychosomatic concers and also a dread of touch. (Although, the dread of touch was a later development, perhaps connected to my fateful 4th grade year.) Varimants had his own dance with physicality.  read more »

Tuesday evening, half past eight. F and I enjoyed dinner on our little balcony; a delightful breeze keeping us most pleasantly cool. Joan and Luciano are belting out Tosca. (In one of the most recent episodes of Six Feet Under, the death was of a gay fellow who’d worked for an opera. His lover decked out the funeral parlor with striking blue and red scenery from Tosca, the show’s scene and the episode, closed with a fellow singing an aria from the opera.)  read more »

A beautiful, sunny Sunday late afternoon. The sky is a luminous, rich blue, with puffs and striations of white cloud at the horizon. The light glistens a gentle silver. A perfect spring day. Mother’s Day. A holiday never observed in the Jaunarājs household. I’m sure this would have been explained by saying that, instead, the Latvian Family Day was celebrated. But this was observed only as long as I attended Latvian school, and the holiday was officially celebrated at a school function. Family Day was never observed in the family circle.  read more »

Sleep Dream.  I’m in the Springs. Somewhere in the vicinity of Stratton. I’m with someone, but I don’t recall who. We need to drive east. I turn onto Van Buren, but after a block, I realize that it’s been made a one-way street, going west. I turn right to get off and ponder what to do. I know that Paseo won’t work, something about its directionality. I’m in front of Stratton and the red brick apartments with their tall blue spruces. I don’t know what street will take me east. I talk to someone about getting directions, a woman, I believe.  read more »