I am rushing through a busy airport attempting to catch
a flight to an art opening. I don’t know exactly
where it will be but I don’t feel lost.
My luggage consists of a large puffy suitcase shaped like
Frosty the Snowman and a cell phone. The suitcase is white plush
and has two button eyes and an orange felt carrot for a nose.
The suitcase is wearing a red silk tie.
As I walk, the suitcase seems to be getting heavier and heavier
until I am having to drag it along the shiny tile floor with all my might.
I look back and see that the entire contents of the suitcase: a fluffy
light blue blanket, a white cotton washcloth
and a red plaid travel pillow have fallen out and are tangled into a giant knot.
I am not sure how long this has been the case.
I try to wrap the knot tighter so that there is less drag and
I can move faster down the hall. When I reach for the washcloth
I notice that it is sopping wet. I fold it into the blanket anyway.
While working to secure the items, my cell phone rings.
It’s my mother. She is just calling to tell me she loves me.
I am happy to hear from her and so I decide to take a short
break to catch up with her. I climb on top of the enormous knot of my worldly possessions.
It is disproportionately large now. Standing there, I can see
very far down the hall towards my destination. As I speak I notice that there
is an echo to everything that I say. I look down and see a young girl
standing at the foot of the knot.
She is around the age of 7 and has long curly dark hair and a mischievous smirk on her face.
She sees me seeing her. Mockingly, she repeats every word of mine.
I am annoyed and want her to stop so I switch to speaking only in Spanish.
The young girl continues to repeat my comments more loudly now and
in Spanish. The other passengers do not seem to notice my predicament
and walk past me hurriedly.
I wake up.

I am standing in a corner of my studio.
It is a large raw space with high ceilings
and cracked brick walls that were covered
over with white paint a long time ago. The
floors are thin dark wood panels also
cracked and marrred by nail holes. They are covered
with a thin layer of yellowish dust.
There are several wide rectangular windows
on each wall through which I can see only bright white sky.
There is an intense golden sunlight in the room
and a soft breeze blowing through.
The space is crowded with long panels of brown packing
paper cut into elaborate arabesque patterns and
hung from the ceiling. Next to every panel of cut paper
there is a bouquet of tall dried reeds with feathery bowing arms
anchored to a cement disk.
The breeze blows everything gently back and forth.
There is a woman and a man walking through the
space. They are helping me assemble the work but
I do not interact with them.
I feel close to them but they don’t seem to be aware of me.
They continue stuffing reeds into the cement anchors on the floor.
I am still standing in the corner surveying the space when a
friend of mine from graduate school walks into the room.
He has his right hand on his chin and his left arm wrapped loosely
around his waist. He seems pensive as he paces slowly
through the room. I am used to his skeptical silence and blank
stare and it feels comforting.
I make no motion towards him.
I want to hide how happy I am to see him.
After what seems to be a very long time
he begins to walk towards me and I anxiously consider what might
be an appropriate greeting.
I am not sure if I want to touch him.
I can’t remember if I’ve ever touched him before.
I decide I want to touch him.
As he walks towards me he seems much larger a man
than I remembered him to be, taller and stronger.
His boyish face and floppy dark hair seem attractive in a way
I hadn't noticed before. The sunlight in the room is making him
squint and it is difficult to tell if he is smiling.
When he is near me I take his left hand. It feels perfectly natural to do so and the sensation is only vaguely intimate.
We walk comfortably and deliberately around the room, passing between the swaying reeds and sheets of paper.
This seems to go on for a very long time.
The light in the room is becoming hazy.
I wake up.

It’s a bright early afternoon and I am in NYC to visit Anjali. She greets me by
hopping across traffic on a crowded street and waving wildly with both arms
over her head. She is wearing a white short sleeve cotton blouse and black
and white gingham skirt. I notice that I am also wearing a black and
white gingham skirt, my blouse is a black t-shirt.
We clasp hands and skip down the sidewalk smiling
and bobbing our heads from side to side.
We are going to visit Ann Hamilton’s studio in Chelsea.
The building is a rough single-story corrugated tin structure with
hangar doors and smears of yellow paint on the rusting red roof.
It seems out of place among the brown brick buildings and street side cafes.
We go in through a small metal door on the side of the building.
The studio is teaming with people. Some are in evening gowns and others
in blue jean overalls one woman is dressed like a Las Vegas show
girl in feathers and gold beads.
The light is a cool blue making everything seem futuristic and very clean.
Ann comes over to us. She is a giant, at least ten feet tall. Smiling she
bends over to greet me saying “You are so small and so cute, so little and cute.”
She pets my hair with a firm downward stroke using both of her hands,
one on each side of my head. She smiles warmly. “Anjali, you didn’t
tell me your friend was so little and so cute,” she says. I am in awe of her.
She pets me again with her enormous hands nearly knocking me down.
I look up at her feeling privileged to have her attention. Just then someone
calls to her and she walks away in wide slow steps. Without turning back
she says, “Let’s talk later.” There is a fake fallen tree on the floor near the
dance floor. Anjali and I sit down on the tree to watch the dancers twitch
under the light of the disco ball. A thin young man with longish
black curls and pale white skin sits next to me. He seems annoyed but
very comfortable in the environment. I turn to Anjali and say, “ How does
she keep track of it all. There is so much going on.” The young man turns
to me and in an annoyed tone he says ,“She doesn’t
have to because I do.” He tosses his head to the right, bouncing the curls
out of his eyes and then looks away to the dance floor.
I wake up

It’s very early but already it is daylight outside and
the air in the bedroom has a yellow dusty look.
I am lying on my back looking up at the ceiling.
I notice that the bed sheets are tied in large voluptuous knots.
I can see Kevin’s graying curls out of the corner of my right eye.
Momo is curled up snoring near the foot of the bed.
Without moving my head I turn my eyes to look at her adorable little feet.
They are baby human feet with wrinkled soles and perfect dot toes
that occasionally twitch as she dreams.
I can see the plush skin on her belly rise and fall gently as she sleeps.
I wonder what she is dreaming about.
What do dogs dream about?
I wake up.

I am asleep on a 19th century fainting couch. Its velvet upholstery is barely pink
and trimmed with silk braid in a deep salmon hue. The wooden frame is stained
golden maple and carved with figures depicting Diana’s flight through the forest.
I am in my home, an enormous single room with vaulted ceilings and polished
cement floors. The walls are also polished cement.
There are two columnar windows on each wall
through which I can see the dense tropical jungle outside.
The light is gray and clear as if it were about to rain.
The room is filled with several pieces of office furniture, desks, chairs, bookshelves
unmatched and disorganized, some turned to the wall others upside down on the
floor. Piles of books, desk lamps and teapots are on every available surface.
As I begin to wake I notice that my right eye is tender. I can see myself where I lie.
My right eye is swollen and the skin is blushed.
There are tiny flower buds in my eyelashes.
When I pluck one out it blooms into a pink honeysuckle flower in the palm of my hand.
I look down and notice that my breast is covered with honeysuckle flowers.
I wake up.

I am in bed with Anthony Bourdain.
Our bed is dressed with plain bone colored sheets.
The smell of toasting sugar is all around us.

The walls are painted in white and gray with ash
details. There is an enormous rectangular
window across from the bed with sheer white curtains
hanging over it. The light inside is hazy and gray
giving the room a cool serene feeling. I can see the
ocean through the window and I wonder where I am.
Am I on a boat? Are we on the Cape? It doesn't seem
important.

Anthony is lying next to me on the left side of the bed.
He is very tan and his body seems too long for the bed. The
sheets do not cover his left shoulder and neck and I can
see that his skin is glistening. His hair is damp and
lying in short curls on his forehead. He gets out of the bed,
walking across the room naked, not looking back at me.
He dresses from a pile of clothing on a recliner near the
window- blue jeans, a dark gray t-shirt and brown sandals.
“I’m leaving.” He says, “See you later.” “Ok, bye, bye,
talk to you soon.” We are both smiling but not at each
other. He closes the door behind him. I am still in the
bed when Kevin calls. He wants to know what I am
doing. I tell him that I am getting ready to go out. We
make plans to meet somewhere but when I hang up
the phone I realize that we didn’t decide where.

I am in the car on the way to my mother’s house. It looks
like it is about to rain but it is still very bright out. I decide I
want to walk the rest of the way and so I pull over on the
side of the road and get out of the car. There are expansive
green fields on either side of the road and I can see large
farmhouses in the distance. There is one much smaller
house not far up ahead. It is built only a few feet from the
road. Its wooden panels are painted a blue gray color with
a carved flower pattern on the roof overhang. The white
slatted shutters are open and there is a white wooden flower
box under each window overflowing with red geraniums and bright green ivy.
From the street I can see that the windows are hung with
sheer white curtains. I walk back and forth in front of the house.
I notice the brass doorknob on the front door, I notice that there
are four steps to the porch. There is an unkempt garden in front
of the house. It starts just behind the white picket fence
that surrounds the small front yard. I count seven tender young
yams, golden and conspicuously veined. There are another seven slender
Japanese eggplants hanging from a vine and a bouquet of
pink cabbage extending its ruffled foliage off to the side.
I realize it is too far to walk to my mother’s house.

I am back in the car and on my way to my mother’s
house when Kevin calls and tells me to meet him at the
train station. Inside the train station I see Kevin from
behind. I recognize his tangled graying curls and his young man’s
posture. Almost immediately he turns around and sees
me. The station is crowded with people hurrying about in
every direction and it is difficult to get to him. Once we
are standing together everything seems resolved.
I don’t know why we are in the station and it doesn’t seem
important. We stand next to each other looking around
the spacious lobby. I notice the vaulted ceilings and exposed metal beams
bent in wide arches overhead. I begin to count the dots on the speckled tile floors. Then I notice Anthony
walking by me on my left. He is in the same dark gray t-shirt and
blue jeans from this morning.
He looks directly at me without breaking his stride.
His expression is friendly but he is not smiling.
I wake up.

I am in my family's living room with my home girls.
It's very tan and tweed in the room. Somehow
I know it is 1989. I am wearing purple lipstick
and my hair is shoulder length, straight, parted in the
middle and feathered. I am a Chola. My cousin
Christine is there too. There are four of us. I don't
recognize the others but this is not important. Christine
is in charge. We are all wearing tight navy colored dickies
with trucker's wallets in our back pockets and a chain that
connects them to a belt loop. We are determined. We are
going somewhere important to do something important but
I am not sure what. Christine decides it is time to go and
takes the first steps towards the door. She throws
open the door and we are instantly flooded in a sea
of Cheeze Whiz. We are floating with our hands outstretched
and our chins just above the viscous yellow-orange surface.
The mood is calm and no one seems surprised nor concerned
in the least. We float around for what seems to be a long time,
looking at each other, calmly as if this will simply pass
and we will soon be on our way. I notice that our hair has
remained perfectly styled.
I wake up.

Some people around me are standing very close to me.
I am afraid but I don't try to leave. I can not see their faces
but I want to. I am about to wake up but I am waiting to
see them. I wake up and everything disappears.

I am sitting across from a male friend in a very small space,
maybe a closet but it isn't important. We are crouched down
with our knees against our chests and our backs
pressed straight against the walls of the tiny room. Our knees
are touching. The tips of our noses are very close.
We are grinning at each other.
This seems to happen for a very long time.
I wake up.

I go to visit a man that I graduated from art school with at his
apartment. It is afternoon. We are sitting on sofas that are parallel
and facing each other in his living room. He looks just the same, with
bushy hair and beard. His legs seem very long. His couch is against
the window and so he is backlit by golden light. He tells me that he
has a new book deal and that the book will be released this week.
He insists that I should come to the release party. He wants it to be a
big surprised and makes me promise not to tell anyone. It is the next
day at the same apartment and no one else is around. I am hungry
and so I have a steak with steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes.
The apartment is filled with the same golden light. The air inside is
hazy. He comes home and yells, “Why did you tell, now they don’t
want the book anymore! The whole thing is off!” He is storming
around the apartment and I am startled. I drop my half eaten plate of
food on the floor and scramble around trying to pick up the mess.
There is carpet on the floor and I splash it with water and frantically
scrub it with my fingers. He is now sitting on the couch against the
window staring at me angrily. ”I only told Kevin, we were alone in the
bed with the dogs. No one could have heard and he didn’t tell
anyone.” He continues to stare angrily. “Anyway, what does it matter
what I do in my own room with Kevin.” “You weren’t supposed to tell
anyone,” he yells. I am still trying to clean up the mess. I wake up.

I am walking alone on a deserted street in Queens. There is a Greek
bakery every few doors and so it seems like it might be Astoria. I
don’t really know where I am going but I know that it is very far away.
I feel that if I take a bus I can get there faster. I board a bus that looks
more like a long car than a city bus. It has thick seat cushions
covered in dark gray terry cloth. The cushions are so thick that I am
pushed against the door. I notice the shiny chrome lock. The bus
driver is an elderly woman with a grimace for a face. I don’t know
where I am or where I am going and so I have to speak to her. “Can I
get off at the next stop?” “This bus ain’t stopping for no one,” she
says. I notice the shiny chrome lock on the door again. Almost
immediately the bus comes to a stoplight. I jump out into traffic and
am nearly hit by a car. Before I can catch my balance the bus
speeds away. I start walking in the opposite direction on the same
street, back the way I came. Its cold and I realize I left my coat and
purse on the bus. I keep walking hoping to find my way back to
where I started but I don’t quite know where that is either. A young
man, at least 10 years younger than me is now also walking on the
street. He is wearing a red sweater. “Hi.” “Hi.” He seems more bored
than friendly but we are alone together and so I tell him my story. He
doesn’t respond but hands me his cell phone and I feel relieved. The
moment the cell phone is in my hand, he gropes my ass. I don’t let go
of the cell phone and he doesn’t’ let go of me. I dial Kevin and leave
him a message about how I don’t know where I am or how to get to
him. The guy is still holding on to me, insistent on something vague
and nonsexual. I call Kevin again. The phone picks up but no one is
talking. I can hear our dogs barking in the background and someone
far away in the room is talking to Kevin. The scene seems light and
fun. The guy’s friends show up in a car. He suddenly has 4 large suit
cases with him. They are red and match his sweater. He wants his
phone back so he can leave. I give him back the phone. He explains
that there isn’t room for me in the car because of his luggage. I wake
up.