9.4.01

I dreamed last night that a man was shooting at my house; I saw it as though it were a news report, at least initially. He shot out a large window on the second story. But marksmen, or police, were shooting back at him with very exact aim. I saw the man die, but even as he died he tried to shoot at the house, and as he was being carried away (by two or three women, maybe a man) he kept saying, “Save me, save me.”

Then later I dreamed I was on a ship in very icy waters. Sometimes the ship looked like the fourth floor of Barnard Hall. __ was there but he was distracted and his expression was empty. He barely noticed me. It was as though he were partially blind. I looked through his room. He’d left an address book open: one with my address in New Hampshire, one with my father’s address in Buenos Aires, and maybe one more address. One of the pages was ripped. I kept having to change my clothes. Then it became clear that the ship was sinking. It also became clear that its sinking was tied to __ somehow, or at least that he had no intention of trying to save himself, like the captain of a boat goes down with the ship. Then there was an opportunity to switch boats-- I saw Rabbi S. on the other boat. “He’s saving himself,” someone said bitterly. I tried very hard to resign myself to sinking, to drowning. I thought that if I were with __ it wouldn’t seem so bad. But I went for a moment to the other boat-- it was very easy to do, at least for me, and as I was heading back to the sinking boat I realized it wasn’t too late to switch boats. Around the time I was switching boats, people kept referring to me as “Clara Schumann.” Also around this time I noticed I was bleeding, and I thought I was having a miscarriage. Suddenly Z. and Y. were on the sinking boat (they hadn’t been there up to this point) and I realized I had 15 minutes to get both of them on the boat with Rabbi S. I thought I could just leave Z. with Rabbi S. if necessary. I wasn’t sure where Y. was, I was scared to death, and I suddenly had to get my grandmother’s blue cardigan before I could do anything. I kept telling myself it was a waste of time to get the sweater, that I should just get Z. and Y. on the other boat, but for some reason I HAD to find the blue sweater.