There Were Nuns, Ghosts, and it Snowed in Reno

Running on Terrazzo in Bologna by @joeinooue

I had a dream the other night. I saw a nun standing on a hill and it looked like she was flying a kite. I looked up at the sky, tilting and tilting my head back. I saw white wispy blobs in the air. All of a sudden, I realized that the nun was not flying a kite. The white blobs were ghosts and they were waving in the sky of my dream like a bunch of surrender flags. Somehow, I got on a bus and accidentally took it to Reno instead of San Francisco and it was snowing and I did not have a jacket. 

I woke up in my childhood bedroom that was not always oriented and decorated this way. My bed used to be against the opposite wall and I used to sleep with my bedroom door open and my feet towards the window. That was when there was a Sycamore tree in front of my window and a toy box at the foot of my bed.

Eventually, the tree had to be cut down, the toy box got traded for a dresser, and I slept with my head under the window and the bedroom door closed. The room became a relic of sorts. My shelf has the journal that recounts crushes and adolescent frustrations. My drawer full of photographs that documented my teenage years. My closet with clothes I cannot get rid of, but will not wear anymore. My room feels like a dusty trophy case. Nostalgic and sitting there.

I woke up thinking I needed to decipher the nun, the ghosts, and Reno in the snow. I felt nervous, waking up in a dark room now sleeping in a totally alien direction: My bed perpendicular to the western facing window and my head under a mirror. I’m old enough when waking up in the middle of the night happens seldom, but is loathsome. 

Staying in this room is weird. Weird because my life is nowhere near this place and I don’t know when it will come back here. Yet, I have managed to return frequently, but each time it feels like a new age re-run. The kind where you remember the general gist, but forget the things that make the story interesting.

I saw some old friends, the kind that remind me of those strings of days that were happy go lucky gold. Later on, we were driving around in the rain after we tipped our waiter who was way too similar to Jason Shwartzman, both in optics and delivery. “Epitaph for My Heart” got put on and I thought about the first time I heard it, getting driven in another boy’s car. But this time, on February 4th 2024, in the rain, in the back seat I was hearing it for the first time in this direction.

Waking up from weird dreams in a new place, but an old room might just be the feng shui of life. Maneuvering and moving and not being sure how to figure it out while still listening to the same songs.