Blue_Opossum

Night of December 19, 1970. Saturday.



On the eve of my tenth birthday (December 19, 1970), a rather oddly titled article by John Dart appeared in the “Crossroads” newspaper supplement, that being “Is God A She?” I wonder if anyone else even noticed. More importantly, was God “the queen of outer space” (that afternoon’s movie)? “Obviously not all goddesses one meets…are of this sort,” said Dr. Dornish at the end of the article.

One of my most vivid memories from age five is being in the “Miracle Space Ship” in Copeland Park in La Crosse, especially on the day I slid down the big wavy slide for the first time while there was a light rain beginning and my mother was waiting near the bottom (on the right) with arms akimbo and my father just pulling up in a car on the edge of the road, being apparently annoyed by my tentativeness in getting out of the rocket according to what my mother was saying rather loudly. However, I never developed the courage to go all the way up to the top and mostly stopped about one section above what was at the time, a massive slide “above the world”. I listened to the giggles and the metallic thumps above me, sensing the movement and vibrations in this “rocket”, and thought perhaps the whole structure precarious, and even perhaps the other children floating off into nowhere when reaching the top. (Years later, when I returned to Wisconsin as an older teenager, it was far less intimidating.)

In an adventurous dream, Talleah and Yllana are present. Random male classmates serve the background roles. There was the typical composite confusion found in dreams, where I absentmindedly replaced the new slide in the West Elementary School playground with the rocket slide from Copeland Park. This was not problematic as dream characters sometimes do not care less if a setting is even there, let alone rendered with proper detail.

Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor) tells me “You needn’t worry dahlink.”

Queen Yllana: “I’m going to allow myself the exquisite pleasure of watching you while I obliterate the Earth.” (I did not yet know what “exquisite” meant. I thought it might have something to do with pinching someone as they did on St. Patrick’s Day if you were not wearing green regardless of any cultural background or considerations.) John C (classmate) does not seem too impressed and seems to be talking a bit too much. I wish he would just stop before the women get more annoyed or call “dial-a-verse” to keep himself quiet.

The playground is the playground though an outpost on Venus at the same time, perhaps bilocated through typical in-dream layered associations. I need to “escape” by climbing the steps, but they go on forever…