I have dreams about places from the days called way back. I have dreams about my old childhood home. I often dream about the playgrounds and schoolyards in my town. I have a dream about being on the roof of my grade school. Of course, everything looks the way it did, way back when.
Although rare, there are times when I have to take an antihistamine to stop the symptoms from my cold. I have to be really sick for me to take something.
I don’t like cold medicine. They mess with my sleep too.
This is when the dreams become odd.
However, and as I am now, I have about a quarter of my left nostril that I can breathe through. I have a cough that won’t quit and my head weighs a ton.
But this is life and yes, this is one of the many temporary stations that I find myself in.
The weather has been hovering just below the truth of summertime. But the temperature is mounting and the summer will be here soon enough.
Speaking about summer, I dreamt of the old camp that I went to. This dates back to my years before being a teenager. I was closer to the age of sexual realizations and yes, I know that I wanted to play the bases, as in first base, second, third, and the ultimate of all metaphors in sexual baseball, I wanted to score a home run.
I was just sprouting, so to speak. Yes, this is when I was sent away to summer camp.
I never asked to go. Better yet, I never wanted to go.
But I went, nonetheless.
I went to a place near a town called Ellenville, in the mountains of Upstate, New York.
I have no real memories from my time at camp, at least not too many.
I remember some things, of course. I remember the important things. Better yet, I remember the pivotal moments like when I learned about the older girls and how their bunkhouse had a hole in the wall by the showers. Yes, I looked through. And yes, this was the first time I saw an actual girl naked.
This was brilliant, I thought.
How lucky am I?
How random this was and what a coincidence it must be to have a hole, located in such a perfect spot.
I made out with a girl for the first time at this camp. I think we timed the seconds that we kissed, just so we could call it “official.”
I think it had to be 30 seconds. She let me touch her too, which I thought was really nice.
She was one of the girls from the older bunk. In fact, we kissed each other beneath the bunkhouse and right by the hole in the wall, which is where I saw her naked.
I remember thinking about how incredible it was.
You know?
How lucky was I to hear and learn about an accidental hole in the wall that looks into the girl’s showers.
Then I grew older.
And then I realized that this was no accident.
Then I realized, the world is a predatory place—and so?
No wonder why kids don’t go outside or play in the playground anymore.
I’m older now and I don’t peep through holes in the wall, like I did when I was a teen. But I do remember the feelings I had. I remember the first time I saw an undressed girl, naked as when she was born.
And then everything became clear to me . . .
I understood why men fought wars over things like this. I understood why men jockey for position or fluff their chest to be picked. I understood why men lie or steal, just to touch a piece of flesh or hope for the moment when they can have her and feel warmth from her hand.
I sometimes dream that I am walking through the old campgrounds. No one else is with me. No one else is around.
All the bunkhouses are empty. The mountains surround me, and the lake is flat and quiet.
There is something about this to me. There is something intimate and beautiful and something inside of me that screams like a burning desire to share what I’m feeling.
I found myself walking from the lake to the main compound in my dreams last night.
I was walking up the path and came to the circular compound which was divided by the girl’s side and the boy’s side.
There was someone waiting for me in the doorway of one of the bunkhouses. I always assume it’s you.
Her body is standing in the doorway of my old bunk on the boy’s side. She is standing naked in the doorway. her long hair is over her right shoulder and her body is unclear and out of focus.
I try to move faster and closer.
Is that you?
I try to move in to reach you, but I always wake up before I can touch you.
Life is like that, I suppose.
We want something.
We can tell it’s there.
We an almost see it.
We know what we hope for, but the closer we get, the more the object of our desire or the person we love seems to move away or disappear. Then we wake up from our dream.
The antihistamines killed me last night.
I have to go back to bed for a while.
But who knows, maybe I can see you again
in my dreams . . .
The Written Addiction 