sleet and dreams

Today it thunder-sleeted - we had a big thunderstorm all night that dropped massive amounts of sleet. It's accumulated into something that looks like snow, only it's made of tiny ice granules, like sand. It feels like walking in sand, too, your steps give way the way they do at the beach. It's very surreal, with the icy sound of falling sleet and white "sand" all around.

I had a dream last night that I was helping my friend Jennifer with her middle school play. They are doing an adaptation of Cinderella (this is actually happening in real life) but in my dream it was a cowboy version. So the big ball that Cinderella goes to at the end was actually a hoe-down. It was sort of cute. After we worked with the kids, I went to go see my old composition teacher from the U of Iowa, to get her ideas on a piece I was working on. I knocked on her door, but got no answer, though I could hear her moving around in the room. My composition teacher from my undergrad school then came out of a door at the end of the hall. "Don't bother knocking" he said. "Amy got fired today." I then realized that the sounds coming from her room were muffled crying.

It was sort of a revelation to me when my old comp teacher showed up in my dream - I hadn't realized I was still haunted by that old crotchedy ghost. And that he was head of a department where someone who encouraged and helped me had been kicked out, seemed telling too. Interesting how dreams shed light on the landscape of your mind. In the inner battle for Kim's outlook on her life, the wrong side was winning!