i bring to you a new dream, please read and enjoy in some way, it's a calm dream, but it's filled with anecdotes and memories. let's begin.
Motorbike dreams:
Woke up last night from a
dream, where I was given a motorbike, some kind of blue/green Honda motorbike.
It was a gift from a friend, a dude whose face reminded hidden behind an ever
shifting blur that was like a mask that was constantly moving in an octagonal
shape, a flesh covered mask. I rode the bike from the North shore part of town,
somewhere around Schubert, maybe Courtenay Avenue, which was the last place I
lived before I left Kamloops when I was sixteen.
When I was that age, it was
tumultuous to say the least, I remember cutting the grass in the backyard and
when I was finished the neighbour asked how I was doing and I broke down
crying. Which was a rare show of face, because I came from the era of hide it,
the pain, deep down inside and never show anyone. But for some reason I balled
my eyes out and the neighbour reached out and gave me a hug and assured me
everything was going to be alright.
I have a feeling it was that
neighbour who gave me the motorbike, he was an auto salesman, and constantly
had new bikes, trucks and cars. Anyway, back then Courtenay Avenue was a rough
street, a balance of low income renters and middle class home owners, the crime
wasn’t bad, but the drinking and physical abuse could be heard happening any given
night on that street along with sirens and cops and occasionally ambulances. I
had no safe place to run to back then, so I left for good in the coming weeks
and didn’t really look back again until now.
So, in the dream I had last
night, I was given this motorbike, which you had to kick start, something I
vaguely remember how to do, as when I was a kid, around 7 or 8 my cousin
Michael had two little Honda 50 or 60 cc motorbikes that we used to rip around
on out in Del Oro, a suburb on the outskirts of town. He’s deaf, but we’ve been
close since we were toddlers, and I knew sign language, so he taught me how to
ride a motorbike and kick start one. Those were the good days, riding around a
barely complete suburb, empty lots and houses, doing brake stands and pop a
wheelies and racing each other a km back to home.
Like any Aboriginal kid, or
native or indian as we were known as back then, I lived with all my aunties and
uncles at some point, my mother was 16 when she had me and was going through a
lot of trauma from being in residential schools since she was 5 or 6. She went
through hell and abuse and I have made my peace with her for the way we lived
when I was younger, she’s my mom, I love her and she’s living a good life these
days, so I’m really happy for her. Everyone deserves a fair break and for
things to work out and she’s riding things out her way at last. Anyway, back to
the dream, I get the motorbike and remember riding around the North shore
testing it out, getting a feel for the throttle, the clutch and changing gears.
Once I felt comfortable
enough, I rode out towards Westsyde road and down the 4-lane road out towards
an undetermined street, maybe Fort Street, I lived there for awhile when I was
a kid. I pulled the bike to the end of a street and a large open gravel lot and
parked it. I went and got a white bucket from a house and filled it with warm
water and place a Styrofoam cup in it. Then I left it and walked back to the
house and went inside and waited at a table for the owners to come back. When
they did, it was a man and a woman, in their 50’s and my dad in a wheelchair
who came in the house, looked at me and left again outside. He didn’t say a
word to me, the woman came and sat beside me and said something, but I can’t
remember, along the lines of “it’s not your fault, he’s just pissed off about
something,” and the man went to go get my father. I told her I had been given a
motorbike and she said she knew already, so I told her I’d go get it, and I
guess that’s why my father was mad, because I was riding a motorbike. I think
he was worried I’d end up in a gang or something.
I left the house and walked
to the end of the street and got on the motorbike and ripped past the house and
my father doing a brake stand and riding on the back wheel of the motorbike and
headed back to Westsyde road. Once I got back onto it I rode back towards town
and woke up. It seemed like a new dream, a lot of my dreams seem old and
recurring for some reason. But lately I’ve been dreaming about the Westsyde area,
I went to one grade of elementary school out there, grade 6 or 7 and lived in a
couple places. I wonder if I’m processing something from that time now? I was
11 or 12 when I lived out there and remember riding into town on my bike, a
ten-speed classic with the mountain goat type curled forward handlebars.
Unbeknownst to my mum or
stepdad I would bike 5km into town on Saturday or Sundays to go to a bookstore
that is now a gun store, and look at mad magazines or other comics and funnies.
Buy something or not, and bike the 5 km back home in an afternoon. I was
reading full-length chapter books then too, mainly boy type ones, apocalyptic
mad max type books, barbarians, sci-fi and horror even. I read voraciously like
my son and daughters do, reading was an escape I suppose. Creating worlds and
dreams of escaping Kamloops, and when I finally could escape and leave this
town, I did. I traveled the world for almost 20 years now, as a tourist, an
adventurer, a musician, an artist, a father, a writer and a filmmaker. Now I’m
back and still in Kamloops and don’t mind it as much as when I hadn’t left. Tom
Waits said it best, “the world feels like a shoebox if you haven’t left your
hometown, but once you do and leave for a few years and come back, it’s as big
as you can imagine.” Or something like that. Haha.
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So, I wonder if I’m
processing something long forgotten events and memories finally as I near 50
years old or if something else is going on in my subconscious? Like I’ve said,
a lot of my dreams seem old and recurring, so when something new happens it’s
exciting and interesting, at a certain point in the dream, I knew it was a
dream, when I saw my dad with the man and woman come up to the house I didn’t
recognize but made myself at home in and waited for them. Dreams are so strange
and fascinating, I’ll probably this one again now that I’m aware of it, so we’ll
see what happens shall we?
my youngest and i as i wrote this blog post
this blog post.
kamloops view north from the steps
of the old courthouse.
creative fuel.
old courthouse view facing west Kamloops valley
li'l Chris Bose, maybe 7 years old?
missing teeth. haha.
