Just a Dream

“Paul.. Paul… wake up!”

I felt a hard pushing on my right shoulder and lurched my head up, my eyes suddenly wide open and searching for some sense of what was happening. 

“Wha… what?  What’s wrong?”

“You were shouting in your sleep,” she said.  Then her voice calmed as if to help ease whatever pain I was experiencing.  “I think you were having a nightmare.  Are you okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, I think so,” I said, still trying to get my bearings and understand not only what had happened, but where and even who I was.  “Oh, yeah… I guess I was dreaming.  Wow!  It seemed real.”

“What were you dreaming about,” she asked me with her usual motherly concern.  “You seemed agitated, and you were saying some words that I couldn't understand.”

“Really?  Well, let me think a minute.  Oh, it was weird.  I dreamed that I was living in another country… like maybe Russia or something.”

“Russia?”

“Yeah.  No, wait… no, it was Ukraine.  Yeah, that was it… Ukraine. Most of the people spoke Russian but didn't like Russians.  I had left my company a long time ago and gone there.  And I had lived there for a long time, like five years or seven or something like that.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression.  “You left the company?  That's hard to believe.  But why Ukraine?”

“I don’t know why it was Ukraine,” I responded.  “I was just there, and I was an English teacher, I think.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” she said.  “You’re a good writer, and we first met in a class you were teaching, remember?”  And she smiled.

“Of course.  How could I forget that?”  And I smiled back.  “But this dream was SO real.  It’s like a whole big piece of my life went by in the space of a dream.  I was there, I had experiences, I had problems, I had ups and downs, there were people in my life, and they seemed real.”

“Do you remember their names?”

“No.  Not now.  But they seemed so real.  I had some very close friends, a lot of acquaintances, and so many students.”

Her expression changed a bit and her face took on a more serious look.  “I see.  And were any of these ‘friends’ women?”  The tone of her voice was laced with mock coldness.

“Actually, most of them were women,” I answered with a chuckle.  “In that way, it was pretty nice.”  Then I covered up as she pretended to punch me, only to land a playful blow on my shoulder.

“Oh, my poor Paul, whisked a way in his dream to a land of beautiful women.  How hard that must have been for you,” she said with her usual benign brand of sarcasm.  “And was there anyone special in your dream?  A replacement for me?”

“Come on,” I entreated, “no one could replace you.”  I winked at her and added, “but if you must know… yes, there was someone special.  But…”

“But, what?"

“Well, it seems that it was someone I couldn't be with.  It was like I had fallen in love, but I couldn't get as close as I wanted.  I don’t remember exactly why it was like that, but I do remember that I felt frustrated, and empty.  I lived alone the whole time, and it was very empty.  I lived in a city, and it was busy and noisy.  I had people all around me, I had all these friends.  But I remember that I felt really alone.”

"And did I exist in this dreamworld?"  She seemed rather serious now.

"No... I don't think you did," I answered.  "Or, who knows?  Maybe you were the one I couldn't be with.  I don't know.  I just know that it hurt to not be able to be close to that person."

She fixed her eyes on me silently for a moment, lowered her gaze, then peered up at me with that soft, knowing look that I had long come to know, appreciate and even need from her.  “Why do you think you dreamed about being alone, about feeling empty?  Do you feel that way in real life, in our life?”

“No, no… not at all,” I insisted.  “I don’t know why I had that feeling.  Maybe it was a reminder of how I felt before I met you.  Or maybe it was a fear of losing you.  Honestly, I just don’t know.  But that wasn't the worst of it.”

“Really?”  Her expression grew curious.  “What could have been worse than that?”

“Well, the worst thing was that in my dream, I was old and terribly out of shape,” I said.  “I mean, I was way overweight.  Really fat.  I must have had ten inches more around my waist than I do now.  I looked terrible, and I felt even worse.”

“You've GOT to be kidding,” she said with a laugh.  “You?  Mr. 10-mile hike and then let’s go dancing?  Mr. count every calorie?  I can’t believe you would dream about being fat.”

I sighed.  “Yeah, it was horrible.  And I had all these pains in my back and hips and knees.  At the end, I could hardly walk, and when I did, I was really slow. No energy.  I think I had other physical problems too.  My cardiovascular system was shot.  I ate the worst kinds of crap, and I couldn't seem to stop myself.”

“You told me you went through a time kind of like that before we met,” she said.  “Do you remember?”

“Yeah,” I answered, raising my eyebrows and shaking my head.  “But that was short and nothing compared to how I was in my dream.  And in my dream, I was getting old.  Sort of like my father, but with a bunch more weight.  Really… it was awful.”

She jumped up, shook her shoulder-length dark brown hair and smiled.  “Well, it was just a dream, and you should forget about it.  It’s Saturday morning, it’s a beautiful day, and you are in luck: I feel like making blueberry pancakes.  I’ll make you some coffee first.  Why don’t you get up and sit out on the deck for a bit while I make breakfast?  You’ll feel better.”

“You’re too good to me,” I answered with a smile.  “But you've got a deal.  And later, let’s take a walk up into the hills and see if we can spot some elk.”

“I’d rather take our bikes out on the trail,” she shot back.  “And yes, I AM too good to you.”

I smiled.  “Bikes – you got it!”

And with that, she turned and glided lightly out of the bedroom.  I watched her admiringly as she walked away, not only for her lithe, beautiful body, but for the special heart that resided there.  What a lucky guy I am, I thought.  

The sun was already easing the night's chill as I sat on the deck and looked out at the pine forest that surrounded our house.  I sat so that the sun's rays could warm my bare legs and arms, then tilted the table umbrella just enough to keep the direct rays out of my eyes.  It was nice to feel the contrast of the warm rays against the still-cool air.  

I held my coffee cup just below my nose and let the earthy aroma flow into my nose.  Then, one sense satisfied, I took my first sip and savored the delicious flavor, punctuated with Irish cream, on my tongue.  As the warm liquid made its way down, I thought of how grand a simple morning like this could be and how I wished every moment of life could be like this.

And all around me were reminders of what a miracle life is.  Humming birds buzzed around the deck, taking advantage of the feeders we always kept stocked for them.  I loved the sound of their humming wings first thing in the morning.  And it always fascinated me to watch them maneuver around the feeders, effortlessly hovering and jetting from left to right, up and down, and then speeding off.

In the nearest trees, a few other birds sang their morning serenades, sometimes solo and sometimes in “conversations” with each other.  And the mountain breeze wafted gently across the pine needles and aspen leaves to create that ever so soft whooshing sound that added an extra aura of magic to our home.  

A squirrel scrambled up the side of the tree where I kept the bird feeder hanging from a branch.  As usual, it was trying to figure out a way to safely steal seed from the feeder.  But also as usual, I had the feeder hung just out of its reach.  Still, it was fun to watch the squirrel try.

I heard the sound of light footsteps from the right and saw some mule deer walking up toward the house.  There were five of them.  I recognized three of them as regulars to our place, especially one doe with her fawn.  I sometimes put corn out for them, and they seemed to feel safe around our place.

Yes… this was paradise.  I could not imagine how a person could be happier living anywhere else.  I was a very fortunate person to live in a place like this. 

But even more, I thought about how lucky I was to have her sharing this place with me.  I remembered how much she had brought into my life and how happy it made me to give her what I could.  She was happy here with me, and I with her.  And isn't that what life is all about?

I looked back from the forest and fixed my gaze on the window into the kitchen.  She was at the sink and looked back at me.  She smiled and sent me one of her patented air kisses.  I returned her smile then turned my eyes back to the forest and took a sip of my coffee.  It was perfect.

Then a strange feeling came over me.  The trees started to blur a bit before my eyes.  An odd thought came to me: what if THIS was the dream?

And then the scene began to fade. All the beauty I had been enjoying turned slowly to formless, graying shapes, becoming darker and darker. The fresh mountain air I had happily filled my lungs with had changed to something stale and almost sickening. I was gasping. My back began to ache, and I found it almost impossible to move. Finally, the darkness consumed me completely.

And from that blackness, I heard my own voice trying in vain to shout. 

"Make it stop!"

... in Russian.

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Deforestation - Kharkov Style

I love trees.  I love their agelessness, the energy they emanate, and the calm they provide when you are in their midst.  Trees are majestic.  Trees give us shade.  Trees give us oxygen.  In short, trees are pretty cool.

When I decided to rent my current apartment back in May of 2009, one of the key attractions of the building was that it was surrounded by trees.  The main street, and especially the area around my building, had an abundance of trees.  It was like a park.  It was a stark contrast to the almost treeless area around my old apartment, which fronted to a busy, noisy and dirty main street.

But my new place had nice, big, mature trees with broad, leafy limbs that reached out and formed a beautiful canopy.  They provided shade and kept the area cooler in the hot summer sun.  I could always be sure that my apartment would not suffer being overheated by the direct rays of the sun. 

Having so many trees around made me feel less like I was living in a big city.  From the street, it was almost impossible to actually see my building.  It reminded me – if only a bit – of my forest home in the Colorado mountains.  Of course the types of trees were different, and there were a lot more people and cars around (and no bears), but I did say that the resemblance was “only a bit.”

So I was shocked a couple of years ago when some men appeared outside my building to cut down some trees along our street.  Some residents complained, and the incident received some news coverage.  But the cutting was not stopped.  Last year, some more trees were cut down and hauled away. 

Recently, more trees were cut near my building, and when I returned home yesterday, I found that still more had been removed.  This is very sad and disappointing.  The charm of this place is being lost as these trees come down.  I am afraid that once the remaining trees fully unfold their leafy greenery, it just won’t be the same as it was.

But the big questions that remain are “who” and “why.”  Just who are these people that are taking the trees?  Are they from the city or regional government?  I don’t think so.  Are they just tree “poachers” who are cutting trees around the city to sell the wood?  Possibly.  I really don’t know the answer to this question, and no one I have asked seems to know either.

And why are these trees being cut?  The trees make the street more beautiful, and in this city, we need what few areas of natural beauty we can find.  The trees appear healthy, and I haven’t seen any signs of interference with power lines or other aerial utilities.  So, again, I wonder if they are being harvested to put money in someone’s pockets.  In this country, it would seem likely.

When the first trees came down a few years ago, someone said that they were “illegal” tree cutters.  But probably they were at least semi-legal, meaning they might have been doing something that was not actually legal, but they were paying a bribe to the authorities to let them do it.

As a foreign expatriate, I am in no position to do anything about this, of course.  I can only watch as the parklike environment I have enjoyed is removed piece by piece.  I hope there is a limit to their destruction and that the trees closest to the building will not be lost.

Perhaps this is another sign for me to consider in the future.

Losing Our Humanity

I am becoming more and more convinced that technology is sucking the humanity out of us. Specifically, I've been thinking about how communication technology is causing us to communicate less and less in real, human ways, as we opt for cold, technological communication methods that fit our increasingly short attention spans and the overload of information that we face.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a technological isolationist advocating that  we stomp on our smart phones and tablets, and run off to live free of technology in some remote mountain valley, although that doesn't sound half bad. And the irony does not escape me that I am writing this on a computer and will post it on a blog on the Internet where it will be read by many people on their smart phones and tablets.

Probably I should be writing it on lambskin parchment with a quill pen. But then, no one would ever read it. Besides, I might spill the ink and make a really yucky mess on my carpet. So please excuse my seeming hypocrisy here and humor me a bit.

Today’s communication technology IS a wonderful thing. The ability to communicate instantly with someone in almost any part of the world is fantastic. I’m sure my parents would have loved to have had the Internet and smart-phone technology when I was a young lad away from home for the first time, serving in the navy thousands of miles away on a remote little island called Guam.

I, however, am glad that they were not able to know too much about what I was doing over there. There are some things a mother should never know about what her son is up to (and in my case there were a LOT of things).

And VoIP communication technology like Skype and Vonage make it possible for me to keep in touch with my daughters, who live in different countries, as well as with friends back in the USSA. When you have such a physical distance, this ability to actually talk to someone lessens the effect of that distance and helps maintain the relationship.  It's a good, and human, thing.

But like most wonderful things, our advanced communication technology has its dark side. The technology, especially our handheld devices, is addictive, and too many of us spend too much time with our fascinating toys to the exclusion of too much of real life. In this addiction, we fail to see how our face-to-face, human communications suffer. And many of us become alarmingly rude in our personal and public interactions, and either don’t realize it or just don’t care. Like all addictions, we live in denial of the fact that we just can’t put the damn things down. And also like all addictions, it starts to rob us of our humanity.

I got to thinking about this recently after a strange incident last week. After a long time of waiting for an appropriate opportunity, I had a chance to talk with a woman who I like and have wanted to get together with to talk and catch up, perhaps over dinner or something. We hadn't done that since before New Year. But when I asked when she might have time to get together, she suggested chatting on Skype. 

Skype?

I was a bit stunned by that. I mean, there we were, standing face-to-face, and she suggested communicating online! I had intentionally avoided using an electronic medium to initiate anything, because I still believe that between two people there is no substitute for real, personal communication that employs nothing more than mouths and ears.

Either it was a techno-age brush-off (which is certainly possible), or she is too wrapped up in virtual communication for my taste. Either way, it was disappointing.

Where is the humanity?

Another incident that points out how self-centered and rude people can be with their personal electronic devices happened about two weeks ago. I went to a concert by a fantastic pianist, Keiko Matsui. People were asked to turn off their mobile phones, which I had done before the announcement. But most people just turned their ringers to mute, and an amazing number of them continued to use these devices during the concert.

There was a constant distraction of bright little screens in front of me during the show as people were sending and receiving SMS messages, surfing the Internet, and otherwise playing with their precious little toys.  And a couple of times, I heard ringers going off on phones that hadn't even been switched to mute. It was an unwelcome and, in my view, rude lack of respect for the performer and for those who were there to enjoy the performance. 

And, really, it doesn't even make sense. Why would anyone pay good money for a fine musical performance and then waste that money by paying more attention to their mobile phones? Musical concerts, theatrical performances and the like should be respites from all the busy stuff that intrudes into our lives.  We should be able to relax, let the music carry us away, and not think about the rest of the world for a couple of hours.

To be constantly fixed to a mobile device during such a performance is something I just can’t understand. And to distract others and lessen their enjoyment of the performance is something I can’t easily tolerate.

Where is the humanity?

But, we see this kind of addictive rudeness all the time. The problem of overly loud phone talkers in public has been going on for so long that complaining about it has become passé… and fruitless.  We all complain about the ignorant lout who has to raise his speaking level a few hundred decibels on the bus or in a restaurant, or the mindless bimbo who apparently thinks that everyone in the café should hear about her private affairs. But we don’t seem to have the same level of concern when we are the ones doing it.  Where is the humanity?

Also passé these days is the argument against using mobile phones while driving. Sure, many jurisdictions have enacted laws against it, but these are only softly enforced, if at all. The worst are the people who send SMS messages while driving. I cringe when I get in a taxi here and see the driver trying to send an SMS while navigating the crazy Kharkiv traffic.

I saw a news report recently where they asked adults in New York if they text while driving, and an unsettling number of them said that they did. “It just takes me a moment,” one woman said. “I figure that when I stop at a red light, I have time to tap out a message,” said a man, “but sometimes I have to start moving before I can finish it.”  Morons all – lacking basic humanity.

It seems cliché, but it’s really true that you can see people meet in cafes and such to “get together,” and while they’re there, they spend more of their time on their tablets or phones than actually talking with each other. Probably they are texting each other from across the table. Hey, it beats actually talking.

And how many dates have gone sour because one – or both – of the people spent too much time with his or her mobile device.  Why would you want to stare at a stupid little screen when you could be getting lost in someone’s beautiful eyes?

I've noticed too that young guys on local buses and metro trains use their devices as a way to avoid eye contact with people to whom they should offer their seats, like old people or women with children. They sit transfixed on whatever stupid video game has their fancy or pounding out SMS messages, while ignoring everyone else around them.

Where is the humanity in any of this?

Isaac Asimov once said, “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”  As a corollary, one might say that the saddest aspect of life now is that our communication technology has advanced faster than our ability to use it wisely. Through our lack of wisdom, we seem to be allowing this technology to break down, rather than enhance, our socialization.

Humans are supposed to be social creatures. But real socializing is a personal thing. It includes hearing the unfiltered sound of another voice, the look in another’s eyes, the subtle signals of body language, the touch of a hand or of lips, or even the light smell of a nice fragrance.

Technology seems to be changing us in ways that are not really social. Why do so many of us today seem to prefer the cold text or lame “emoticons” of Skype or a text message?  Why do we use technology to avoid interacting with others in real ways?

Where is the humanity in that?