Dream Journal
I was with Melissa and my parents on the boat. There had been previous damage to the boat, and I was trying to hold the mast with the crow’s nest up straight ant tall because it was very wobbly and I didn’t want it to break. I asked my dad if I could let it lean back against the boom, but he got very angry that I had even suggested it.
The waves got bigger and bigger; one was so big that it flipped and flopped the boat all around. We swirled under water with the boat as it spun. Everything got dark as we went under water, but I had a pocket of air and for that i was grateful - I was sure no one else had a pocket of breathing air.
The boat’s spinning and twisting slowed down and I wondered if I would be stuck in this pocket of air under water not knowing which way was up. When I finally found the surface, my parents and Melissa were nowhere in sight. I knew that they had gone for help.
The boat had righted itself and I went into the cabin to wait. I sat for a while when I noticed the boat was heading too quickly into a very small cove. The cove had cliff walls on all sides and I knew the boat would hit the cliffs if I didn’t do something. I rushed to get into the top house, and my feet kept slipping on the wet stair rungs.
Finally up in the captain’s chair, I stared at the levers and couldn’t remember which ones did what. I needed to put the boat into reverse immediately.
I turned around so I wasn’t looking at the cliffs and pulled on the levers to my left as hard as I could. The boat sped up a bit, so I pulled them in the opposite direction. The boat stalled and pushed backward a very little bit.
I was proud of myself for thinking of it and for being lucky, but didn’t want to turn around and see how close it was. I wondered if I should try to drop the anchor or if anyone would look for me in this little cove.
Then I was waiting in line with the other kids my age from the church as they were getting recognition for certain things. We each had a different vegetable sliced and arranged on a plate to present, and I held the tomatoes.
Tina said something to me and I slapped her, unappreciative of her attitude. She laughed to show me what she had said didn’t mean much of anything. A church deacon called each of our names, and everyone went up one at a time to present their vegetable and get recognition for their work during the previous year.
I waited and waited; since I was the oldest I would have been called last, but he never called my name. He had moved on to some other topic and I was very hurt that I had been left out. I had accomplished just as much as everyone else that had been called, and I still held the plate of bright red sliced tomatoes.
I looked at a graph of all of our cooperation over the last year, and mine was just as much as anyone else’s. I didn’t understand why I had been left out.
Then I was on shore eating a very fancy dinner with my family. One girl at another table kept jumping up to wave to her fiancé who was leaving on a ship for a very long time.
She wore a very nice but simple long white dress from an older era. She noticed the ship had stopped moving forward, and she knew that he was coming in for one last goodbye. She jumped up from her table very excited that a few other patrons, my father included, went over to the window to look at the ship.
I went into the kitchen to get away from all of the ship talk. When I came out of the kitchen, she grabbed my hand and asked me to bring a tray for her fiancé to take off his coat. The only thing I could find was an old, greasy and rusty baking sheet, but she had me follow her anyway.
We met her fiancé outside the restaurant and when she offered to hang his jacket over my baking sheet, he turned his nose away. I offered to hold his jacket with my hand, but he didn’t hear me and kept his jacket on.
We followed his straight back and fancy uniform inside the restaurant. I didn’t like him.