Life Is But a Dream

Kat was knitting a baby sweater for her long-awaited grandchild. The clicking of needles held its own breath that carried her thoughts through time. She remembered when she was waiting for her first baby.

It was research season- breeding season for birds is defined by food source availability - that meant Trevor had to go to the island in the middle of Lake Superior to make hay while the sun shines. What a lark—there is little money to be made by an ornithology graduate student. Grants allowed a humble existence but they did offer the opportunity for hay to be made one day. If hay was to be made, data had to be collected and a thesis had to be written.

Kat was keenly aware that her life was about to change. She was pregnant and that was good. She had given up her dreams of getting her doctorate and her goals had transferred to getting a degree in the school of life. She would make it. She was strong and independent and fit. She was the main character in the story she had written about her life. Yet, many details were testing the viability of the plot and she was having a hard time.

Communication with Trevor was intermittent. A relay system was established, when Kat had to get to Trevor, if she went into labour. It seemed so well-thought out and sophisticated, almost romantic. The great scientist off to do his important research with the loving wife keeping the home fires burning. What another lark. The situations she had found herself in were a group of larks. A group of larks is called an exaltation, or a happiness. Larks are happy birds, but Kat was not ‘happy as a lark.’

Her heart ached to be with her beloved partner and live her good dream come true. Seven months along in her pregnancy was not a good time to go out in the waters, where the mighty S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, had sunk with its crew. April was unpredictable and her first pregnancy even more unpredictable. It had been tougher than she had imagined, and her condition had taught her the meaning of the term, the confinement.

She had thought she had seen her path was as straight as the crow flies. She had been so sure that her life plan, her marriage, and this pregnancy, were something to crow about. Now she was eating crow. She reflected that a group of crows is called a murder. Her dream had been murdered.

Kat breathed as the needles clicked. She recalled that the nights were the worst. Kat had not been raised on the water. When she was ten, she had drowned and been resuscitated, and later on in life, she had another near-drowning experience. She remembered how it felt.

The year after the first near death experiences, she had taken swimming lessons. at the public pool. They started at 07 00 am. If she jumped into the water immediately and started swimming hard, she could block out the cold and her own shame about being there, taking lessons with 8- and 9-year-olds. She was determined to advance through each level during the two-week lessons that summer and the next.

Learning to stay calm under water had taken a lot of courage and self-discipline. It is hard to alter mental pathways when traumas are involved. The first week, she filled the tub, lay on her back with her ears submerged and listened to her breathing. It took daily practise to calm her mind and slow her breathing. In hindsight, she had learned what it is to go into a meditative state. This was before she knew what meditative states were. But since, science has shown, controlled breath alters the body’s chemistry.

She counted her breaths and that moved into a form of meditation that let her mind float mindlessly, with peace and acceptance of life as it is that directed her towards the life that she wanted. Kat then lay on her belly, with her face in the water and even dared to open her eyes. As she advanced levels, when it was time to learn survival breathing and how to float like a jelly fish, she was ready to face her fears.

When she met Trevor, he had opened doors. Kat innocently went through them. Some led through the nine gates of hell. But this story is about when the gates that led to seventh heaven. Meeting him had made her feel that she had a match made in heaven. A group of heavens is called the throne of God, Nirvana, and a Host of heaven. Now she was a host awaiting a bundle from heaven, a little parasite.

She thought about Trevor travelling in his 12-foot skiff from the mainland to the island once a week. She had learned to drive a boat and tie knots, but never could figure out how to sail. Vectors be damned. You never know what wind is going to hit you and toss you over or change your course and going against the wind. Trying to sail in a catamaran and wind surfer had almost been the end of her. She knew that she had limited skills and that haunted her. Survival depends on either knowing how to skillfully manoeuvre a situation or when to give up; when to paddle hard against the current or let it take you wherever. Not understanding how to deal with unruly changing winds made being alone and pregnant, worrisome.

Kat worried about all sorts of who knows what. It had caused the dreams to start. She did not realize she was reliving the first drowning experience, and her worries has led to the trauma of drowning resurfacing. The brown murky water, the smell of clay, the slimy lake bottom with her feet sliding and her slipping under and trying to bounce up but then slipping and going under further and then, laying on the beach with a handsome young man pumping her and her throwing up in front of a crowd of onlookers. In her dreams, she transferred the drowning experience to her soon to be born baby, who had fallen in the murky water. She dove in after the baby but could not see. A whirlpool was sucking them in. It was really hard to open her eyes and when she did, she was awake, screaming and crying. Ignorance really can feed fear.

The needles clicked. Years later she had learned that this was a night terror, but such terms were never used when she was young. It was like when she first heard the word cancer. One of her brothers’ friends had died because of a rare cancer called leukemia when she was ten. Kat had thought this mysterious disease cancer had just suddenly appeared.

God, ten was a hard age. First her brother’s friend died, then President Kennedy, then her dad died, then she almost drowned. It had to be a secret so that her sister, who was watching her, would not get into trouble. Trauma can do serious damage. Life felt hard. Swimming was one of the many ways Kat had chosen to fight the feeling of helplessness. She was determined to do her best to master materials she learned at school and to learn survival skills. Life was to be survived.

The needles clicked. As the pregnancy progressed so did her condition. Toxemia, now known as pre-eclampsia, made life challenging. She could not walk, and thinking was next to impossible. Her friend visited. The hot temperatures had started early and she trundled along for a walk downtown, throbbing, Kat’s condition worsened. Later that night she was hospitalized. She hated drama. She did her best to rest but the anxiety increased.

She had to signal Trevor when labor began. How is a first-time mother supposed to know what labour feels like? The nurses said she was not dilating but she trusted herself to do the risk assessment. The trip in from the island took at lease 8 hours and radio transmission was only possible during the day, so that meant Kat had to make a reasonable guess. Thankfully she was lucky. Trevor was proud to tell the story of how made it in time. The brave soul who found his way through the fog to the mainland and made the drive minutes before the delivery.

Babe was born, mother was fine and they went home. Trevor came for the event and left the next day, begging that Kat and babe come out to the island when the baby was six weeks old. Trevor said they needed to be together to bond. Kat could never say no to Trevor. The night terrors continued even more fiercely.

How Kat managed to get to the docks and onto the 12 foot skiff was a blur. She had never considered herself a gambler, but the terrors had gripped her mind. Hormones and the need for her partner drove her to see past her ignorance. Kat had thought it out. There is a saying that worrying about something does no good, but she was not sure that is always the case. She had faced the repeating nightmares and rearranged her dreams to play out a multitude of scenarios so the outcome would not be dire. She was young and stupid and did not know ignorance when it is most refined.

The arrogance of youth leads many to act without humility. Thinking that they have found an answer to establish a cure or a short cut, or a way to improve profits or make other improvements, usually later prove that their solution is worse than the problem. Ignorance has been recorded throughout history and modern thinking that soon becomes outdated, has led to many of the world’s present crises.

Ignorance rules the world, and life in general. Decisions are made based on risk assessment, that is often based on pluralistic ignorance, a collective term to describe primary ignorance, (from a lack of factual understanding. awareness and technical ability), and recognized ignorance, (being aware of potential problems but ignorant as to how they will manifest). Ignorance stimulates simultaneous social delusions. The unlearned, uneducated, unknowing, blind human creates an echo chamber in which the ignorance amplifies, and imagination convincingly offers a solution in the world of disorder and chaos.

Kat knew what it is to be embedded in a thicket of idiotic thought. She had been caught there and learned from some of her mistakes. She was surprised that she still met more than her share of know it all’s, who are blind to the limits of their ignorance, deaf to when they are told about it, and suffer from dementia when they say they always knew about what they had previously denied. There are also the naïve rationalists, who believe that what they do not know, does not exist. There were many who find security in current group thinking and follow like lemmings into the unknown. When someone thinks they have thought of everything, hindsight reveals 20/20, perfect vision of bloody ignorance, that is not bliss, nor an excuse. Ignorance is just part of life. Ignorance is used as a stimulus to artistically create a piece of fictional art, that intertwines fact with risk and sometimes changes the world for better.

Kat’s risk assessment had determined staying the same was more costly than facing the risk of being in a boat with her newborn and her partner. She was now sitting in mid waters of Lake Superior, with the wave swells exceeding 18 feet. Trevor matched the boat speed with the waves. They were about to go round to the lee side of the island where the waves would be still when Kat felt a chill in the air. The colour of the air changed. She had seen this scenario happen before. Nothing had prepared her for this exact moment. She was as ready as she could be to face the terror she had feared. Icarus flew too close to the sun and drowned. Narcissus saw the beauty of his own reflection and drowned. She had options.

Kat remembered that time, and the dream of a happy married life long ago. Time slowed down. In the flash of a millisecond, she unhooked herself and lay the baby in her floatation device on the bottom of the boat. Then it happened. With open eyes, Kat was thrown overboard. She saw brown water and bubbles. She was in the terror. She observed her thoughts.

The first rule of being in an airplane crisis, is to take care of yourself so you can take care of the baby. Baby, heaven, hell, ignorant, stupid, stupid, stupid, breathe, shore, stupid, shame, breath. Face the terror. Be prepared. Stay calm. She was a brainless, free floating, jelly fish with a radial nervous system that rolled with the waves. Her thoughts became one with the ocean. Survival breath. Blow out while under water, take air in when you can. As she gasped for air she called to Trevor, “Don’t stop. Ride the waves.”

She was under again. Slow breaths. Count. Use your fingers. Eight breaths in sixty seconds. Think for yourself. She knew she might have avoided putting herself in this situation, but the ancients, crossing oceans had to deal with worse situations. She was a survivor.

Grab hold of the side of the boat. Avoid being caught in the motor. Twenty-four breaths. Slow down. Survive. Forty-eight breaths. Calm waters ahead. Stay calm. The waves pushed her alongside of the boat. Grab hold. Sixty- four breaths. Water calm. Kat remembered the relief. Everyone is alive. Exhale. Inhale.

The needles clicked. Kat remembered the long past dreams of youth that had disappeared. She prayed that her grandchild would have dreams, and be prepared to survive and have opportunities to risk and thrive.