Okay… this one might mean something. It’s very screwed up, and I’m having many issues analyzing it. Let’s see what you all think of the dream I had last night. To any family members who may find themselves reading this (particularly my father and unlce), don’t take it too seriously… it is just a dream after all. I just want to know what the meaning is…
I am at Cape Neddick beach, a small, sandy crescent just off of Shore Road on the border of York and Cape Neddick. It is a warm evening with purple and red clouds looming over the Atlantic, somehow catching the glare of the setting sun in the west. It is calm, serene… very satisfying to me, though I know not how I got there or why I am so moved by something I’ve already seen dozens upon dozens of times during my life. Still, I am happy. Happy to be alone.
…and then it happens.
My entire family (minus Dina and the kids) come noisily over the rocks that mark the border of the beach carrying coolers and beach towels. Each one of them is carrying a cooler… my mother, father, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are all there. The funny thing is that none of my cousins are with them. It is just a party of the “adults” I have known in my family throughout my life. I am, at first, threatened by their presence… they were interrupting my moment. Then I see the smile on my grandmother’s face. She is happy to see me… she seems to be the only one who feels this way, and that makes all the difference to me… for a little while. I decide to tolerate their presence.
They all find places to set up their beach-going gear rather quickly, and settle down on their towels. The first thing that they do after this is open their coolers. I am not surprised to see them all pull out their preffered alcoholic beverages… wine for my mother and father… whiskey and ginger ale for my grandparents… Miller Lite for my uncle Mike and uncle Jeb… and so on and so forth. This doesn’t bother me, but I still want to be alone and enjoy the beach, so I begin to walk down the shore-line toward a growth of Sumac bushes at the opposite end of the beach.
I am not walking for long before I hear my father speaking behind me. I turn around in enough time to see his swinging fist, and suddenly I am on the ground. I don’t feel any pain, but my anxiety flares up fiercely. I look up to see that my uncles are there as well. My uncle Mike on the right and uncle Jeb on the left.
I say nothing, choosing to ignore what had happened and continue my trek down the beach. For some reason I am able to convince myself that my father had hit me by mistake. It is not long before I am struck again though, this time from behind, and I fall face-down in the sand. When I attempt to get back up I find myself spitting out the sand that had entered my open mouth as I cried out in surprise during the fall. I am instantly reminded of trips to the beach in my youth when I refused to eat the sandwiches my parents had packed because of the sand that would ultimately enter my mouth as I ate. Nothing bothers me more than the hard crunch of sand between my teeth.
After I finish spitting out as much sand as I can manage without rinsing with water, I turn around to find that it was my uncle Jeb who had struck me this time. He is standing over me with a look of pure hatred painted upon his face. My father’s expressions match this glare, while my uncle Mike, for some reason, is looking away… toward the colored clouds that had previously entranced me. I close my eyes, ready to cry, but don’t have time to do even that! My father’s bare foot comes up quickly, kicking me right in the jaw and sending me back down to the sand.
I have learned enough at this point to know what they will do if I get back up again, so I run… back to the rest of my family. I am furious with them all even though it was just my father and uncle Jeb who had assaulted me. I have things to say to them all…
I think that this post is already too long and there is so much more for me to tell (the follow up to this post is even longer than this one), so I will leave it at that until tomorrow. This dream really hurt… and I’m so confused by it that I would greatly appreciate any interpretations you all might offer. I know how it looks so far, but I don’t believe that the real meaning is as simple as “Earl is threatened by his father and uncle,” because that is not the truth. Far from it actually. I am more threatened by my uncle Mike than either of those two, and he does nothing to me in the dream. This is so confusing…
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September 15th, 2006 
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