There are a few places and situations I regularly revisit in my nightmares, and this is one: the library and administrator offices at South West Texas State University (now entirely given over to offices). The situation is this: it's the end of semester, I do not belong there, but I have to retrieve personal material I've stashed there. I have no reliable method to leave campus, and it is closing down and everyone's leaving. The library is a difficult labyrinth to navigate, and I'm a little lost. Sometimes my 'stuff' is in a locker I can't remember the location of, sometimes it is precariously 'stashed', liable to be thrown away or carried off. Last night it was behind a shelf, a stack of folders a foot and a half feet high, slippery and hard to carry. While I tried to navigate my exit and call for extraction, the elevators continued to befuddle and shift. When I finally made my way out the place was almost empty and night was coming on, and I was none too sure of the rondezvous point. I have this dream with some regularity, with the variation that is sometimes in a big shopping mall complex and I'm trying to get out with the great stuff I've found.
I am still in hospice care, but I'm getting slowly better. My anxieties are now what shall become of me and my stuff? No doubt reflected in this nightmare.
