I recently had dinner with a fantastic writer who encouraged me to get back on the horse and to get these stories written down. That made me dig up my old notes that I had written down on paper, in a notebook I used to carry everywhere in the years immediately following the coma. I had very little ability to remember things... lot of short term memory problems. This notebook went with me to physical therapy 3x a week, enabling me to jot down exercises I should be doing at home to rebuild my body. It also gave me a place to throw out ideas that came floating into my head. This became the place where I tried to list all of the various coma dreams that I lived through.
Last week, nearly ten years after the coma began, I scanned those original notes. These notes are barely legible... but my hope is to tease out the intense stories that I tried to remember through these one-sentence blurbs.
Since trying to read my handwriting is nearly impossible, I aim to write down the bare bones of each idea here, in hopes that it will allow me to circle back and flesh out each story... To give each experience its due. So much of this memory is so intensely personal that I hesitate to write any of it down. There are so many aspects that I still struggle with, even ten years on. But, I told my friend I would try to write it all down.
Having said all of that, I have one more request of anyone reading this: imagine you had a spectacular dream this morning. Can you remember it? Can you still taste it, smell it, hear all the tiny things that were happening? Most dreams tend to vanish quickly on waking. It has been nearly ten years since I woke up from the coma... and these dreams, for lack of a better word, are just as real and tangible as the day I woke up.
My notes follow:
- Jesus in the graveyard, being left behind
- Fishing : restaurant: broken down rig: scuba diving and fear of water: circular driveway
- Kayaking across big lake
- Moving kiln w/woodfire
- Recycling via sidewalk streams, Ithaca
- Dragon making via Nancy; hammering coins
- Display behind my head covered in Led Zep based foods
- Swimming across polluted channel w/ dirty city (recycling focus)
- Sitting in pools eating lunch with David Bowie in France (gallery with pedestal platforms at eye level with David Byrne)
- Falling out of taxi in Queens, carried to stairwell, left in room with glass table, Bridgid brought bread. Diabetes.
- Wyoming dream. Hunting antelope, laying silver $ on train track
- Living in a barn with animals
- Working in diner, cleaning, setting included trees, road, snow
- JFK house w/Nancy - new AC - new clothes/bed
- Old houses @Xmas, singers, smells, horse carriage bells
- Old woman, knitter/weaver w/feathers, looking out her window at sunset
- Room with German platter/disk - played backwards by wife
- Trains rolling by - through army camp ca., WWII
- Housesitting for couple in 1950-1960, very mod - include carpet, chrome, leather
- Canadian woodlot as punishment for speaking out against bad sheetrock and the tearing out of sheetrock @hospital on other side of the mountain
- Hospital setting looking for Mecenas, 3D displays
- Cruise ship with BTS, wife having affair on tape; Jose on call; Grandmother called at port of call
- Restaurant w/Nancy fish restaurant, next to fishing tour boats
- Restaurant w/Nancy van broke down, breakfast only - started story as Another Story
- Mexican scenario w/ morning villa, weird lunch restaurant w/margaritas, salsa verde tacos, fragrant flowers on rock wall, motorcycle dudes in restaurant
- Going through box of records (Mary Ellen, Nancy and I) and dressing up like albums
- Ducts & power company - hiding in abandoned house
- Finding rogue car racing group / underground in ducts
- Cooking / baking during depression @ holidays - trying to perfect not-chocolate for donuts
- Photographing in x-ray film, converting a camera to use x-ray (not IR)
- Martin's Japanese GF racing motorbikes and jetskis - cant remember this one now, 10 yrs later
- Working w/ Nancy's grandfather
- Eating sushi w/couple & mother making food, finally walking across wet field
- Dancing after wedding to Nancy in Spain, paella, rosemary
- Invention device using croc foam to print anything
- Room in house where ^^^ happens, multiple servers
- Ride home from work @ diner in snow
- Hike ~ Spain to see Japanese potter, firing wood
- Waking up in bus depot, stuck there till custodian takes outside
- "" w/ latino and Jesus & tree
- Inside cruise ship BTS - elevator and cameras in CCTV room
- Outside dirty city, BK everywhere, tables, recycling lines, getting trapped in Brazil-esque setting - started writing in Hell is a Lonesome Place needs more. Also started as Thoughts on Dying - still incomplete
- Visiting w/brother, racing off road motorcycles & jet skis -cant remember this one, 10 yrs later
- Mother sitting in corner, knitting / fan blowing
- Indian angry that I could talk to birds, animals - maybe related to weaving woman dream
- Kids poaching deer & woman being so upset, sawmill (ref. Melanie?)
- Seeing Mag's artwork, photography & then seeing subjects in person, together
- Meeting couple with and without kids on kayaking expedition
- Photography out in desert
- Working w/ contemporary photographer w/ pkging
- My medical bed in hospital breaking and fixing it by pushing it to the ceiling - me telling them that I was ready to go home
- Being held post-surgery in an old movie theater's projectionist space w/file cabinets and soda
- Playing w/Xray film, buying special cameras to play with.
- Being arrested for video & being held by FL troopers - ref cruise ship
- Stuck on a long mountain road, needing chains for the truck and the only person I could call was Grandma Barbara
- Landing planes in Okinawa post WWII - written as Landing the Planes
- My mother telling me she was a punk rock groupie
- Stuck in the old room w/diabetes and running out of meds. Needles on the floor.
- Leah and Tim watching kid get killed - Syracuse or Binghamton perhaps - lollipop wrapper near the curb - Now written as: Scenes to Forget
- Passing judgement on souls - in garage with dust and oil
- Recycling life in Ithaca, very hot, needing AC, curbs carrying water, retarded kids and adults working at recycling center
- Watching kids w/candy wrappers and lollipops in Binghamton, (while judging souls)
- Woodfired electric kiln, made by L&L/dusty / taken to CA roadtrip.
- Helicopter ride with Obama's kids, landing on the WH lawn
- Asian food restaurant/kitchen/sliding doors, fish etc.
- Hockey w/girls TGHA in CO, WY, sleeping in crappy hotels w/wet carpet (related to being in teardrop trailer?) - part of this dream written into Burning from the Inside
- Packaging ideas while working for photographer
- Looking for Mecenas in Hospital in Miami - Gangs & 3D screens and virtual presence
- Recycling center in huge scale in city, unable to get out - giant machines like bucket loaders
- ^^ related somehow to Burger King and London
- Hockey arena while on gurney to watch 12U play, but audience unhappy because no beer (<18 yr olds) played Camilus and won
- Hockey travel team going from motel to dive, wet carpet, high fever
- Being stuck in Denver, 2nd story apartment, with ostomy, smell and wet damp everywhere, renting with lots of people, and being stuck in recliner
- Russian hospital w/ labels in Cyrillic - started in Coma Dreams #1 incomplete
- Russian family taking care of me on their table in return for American insurance $$$
- World as Lowes @Thanksgiving/Xmas, including inflated stuff, giant fans and wiring everywhere, fixing house we were renting - tied into JFK house - written as Dust that Burns
- Nancy was there, no AC, installed AC and painted via Lowes- written as Dust that Burns plus part two We Now Return to Our Story
- Laying half out of taxi in NYC/Bronx/Queens, near river, can see bar w/Irving's room above
- Transition to all family inside waiting for Bridgid who brought bread, wall of open shelves, knickknacks.
