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Jun. 19th, 2009
Past Life Collisions
Jun. 19th, 2009 11:37 pm
I think in a past life, I was involved somehow in a carnival or circus. In a side show, or involved in a side show.
I keep having dreams about a circus tent going up in flames, people running around in the dark trying to muster up a bucket brigade, the stench of burning straw & horses screaming. I don't think my dreaming brain is conjuring up flashbacks of Dumbo because when I have Dumbo dreams, it's always the pink elephants on parade - which terrified me as a child. Last night I just dreamed about laying in a flapping tent during a rainstorm, the scent of musty damp burlap, sweat from animals & people, the humid cloying darkness punctuated by rain blowing in through the seams. I think I was maybe an acrobat or dancer... I took up less space.
I joke about hating clowns, but they don't frighten me. Clown puppets frighten me. Pennywise the Clown frightens me. John Wayne Gacy frightens me... but most clowns either don't affect me one way or t'other, or they are just disturbing on that heyokeyah level. They disturb me because they are supposed to be disturbing.
I'm actually comfortable with circus, carnival and sideshow people. I almost ran off w/a boyfriend of mine who was a carnie. The carnival left Vegas & I was seriously considering leaving with him, but predictably he left before I could make up my mind - and he left without saying goodbye. I probably should have gone. I remember one morning (well, okay, it was like, noon, but it sufficed as morning) waking up in the weekly apartment he shared w/some of the other carnies, surrounded by hawkers & barkers & bedraggled clowns with smeared makeup... and making all of them breakfast & strong coffee. Three guys were juggling the eggs from the fridge, around the living room & back to me. It was a sleazy little apartment, but strewn with bright costumes and props and geegaws, rosin making little clouds whenever someone tossed a pouch of it out of their way, made it seem kind of magical. At night, they were such intense focused people that they were a little intimidating, but waking up in their streaky makeup, matted hair, bleary-eyed, stumbling around... it was hard to imagine some of these people defying gravity or being able to con people out of their money for a chance at a cheap stuffed animal.
I keep having dreams about a circus tent going up in flames, people running around in the dark trying to muster up a bucket brigade, the stench of burning straw & horses screaming. I don't think my dreaming brain is conjuring up flashbacks of Dumbo because when I have Dumbo dreams, it's always the pink elephants on parade - which terrified me as a child. Last night I just dreamed about laying in a flapping tent during a rainstorm, the scent of musty damp burlap, sweat from animals & people, the humid cloying darkness punctuated by rain blowing in through the seams. I think I was maybe an acrobat or dancer... I took up less space.
I joke about hating clowns, but they don't frighten me. Clown puppets frighten me. Pennywise the Clown frightens me. John Wayne Gacy frightens me... but most clowns either don't affect me one way or t'other, or they are just disturbing on that heyokeyah level. They disturb me because they are supposed to be disturbing.
I'm actually comfortable with circus, carnival and sideshow people. I almost ran off w/a boyfriend of mine who was a carnie. The carnival left Vegas & I was seriously considering leaving with him, but predictably he left before I could make up my mind - and he left without saying goodbye. I probably should have gone. I remember one morning (well, okay, it was like, noon, but it sufficed as morning) waking up in the weekly apartment he shared w/some of the other carnies, surrounded by hawkers & barkers & bedraggled clowns with smeared makeup... and making all of them breakfast & strong coffee. Three guys were juggling the eggs from the fridge, around the living room & back to me. It was a sleazy little apartment, but strewn with bright costumes and props and geegaws, rosin making little clouds whenever someone tossed a pouch of it out of their way, made it seem kind of magical. At night, they were such intense focused people that they were a little intimidating, but waking up in their streaky makeup, matted hair, bleary-eyed, stumbling around... it was hard to imagine some of these people defying gravity or being able to con people out of their money for a chance at a cheap stuffed animal.