Thursday, January 11, 2007

Donna

Do we meet those we dream of as they dream of us?

I should give homage to "Angel" and the "Grizzbabe" for this....
http://grizzbabesden.blogspot.com/

From a previous post titled “FOR MOM”:
http://srevestories.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_srevestories_archive.html

"In the second grade we were allowed to walk home from school for lunch. Its hard to believe they let us do that. I don't think that can happen these days.
I always walked with Donna Hartlieb. We would part at the corner and meet again to return to school. Every day my mother gave me a Baby Snickers Bar for the walk back and I would split it with Donna on the corner.
One day I asked Mom if I might have two candy bars.
She inquired as to why I would need two. I told her all about Donna and how we walked together everyday, and how I split my candy bar with her always.
I'll never forget the look on Mom's face.
"Oh yes, Stevie, you certainly may!"as she dried her hands on her Watermelon Apron and pulled another Snickers Bar from out of the cupboard.
She was beaming.

I was in Detroit in 2nd grade, and we moved back to Texas in the 6th grade.
over the next several years, passing from a kid to a teenager, with all the hormonal turmoil and finding love, and loss, and pleasures and pains, and learning to kiss and touch and stuff, I would keep Donna in mind, and try to maintain some semblance of being a gentleman.
Years later, when I was 21, a failed romance jogged my memory of Donna and brought fresh revelations of what it meant to be in love.
I wondered did or would Donna remember me, and what her memory of me might be, and how that memory might affect her relationships the way she affected mine.

This was on my mind very late one night, and I decided to drive to Detroit to see if I could find Donna. It was about 3:00 a.m. as best as I can figure when I left Texas. I was wearing shorts and a T-Shirt and had no shoes.
Somewhere around Cleveland my car broke down. I had to walk the rest of the way. It had become quite cold and the wind was blowing very hard as I entered the Detroit city limits. I made my way north, up Jefferson Ave. to Grosse Pointe Park. People were looking at me, staring at me as I had few clothes, and like I said it was quite cold...
I walked down Windmill Drive and up Trombley, past my old house, and took a left on Essex... there were kids on bikes going to School. They all did a double take when they saw me, tossing their heads back in laughter at this fellow in Shorts and a T-Shirt and no shoes.
What an Idiot!!!
I was at the corner of Essex and Harcourt, the very corner Donna and I would part and reunite, when I saw her.
She was on a Red Schwinn, with the big Chopper handlebars and Banana seat and with the pink and white streamers that flapped in the wind. She still had the Blonde hair cut, "Pixie" style, and the Little Red Riding Hood jacket, but like me, she was older now.
It was Donna, and she had seen me.
She did a quick U-Turn and approached me, her face full of recognition.
I could tell she knew who I was.
My heart is beating wildly.
“What are you doing here? Aren't you cold?” she asks.
‘Yes, but I wanted to see you” I say.
“Do you know me?” she asks.
“You are Donna”
“Yes, how did you know?
“I used to live here, I used to walk with you”
Her face is even more full of recognition now and I am so full of emotion I can scarcely even say the words, cannot find the voice to ask that which I have come 1100 miles to ask...so here it is...

‘Donna, do you remember me like I remember you?”

I see it in her face, in her eyes, all she has to do is say the words...her lips begin to form the words to say “Yes, you are Steve, and I remember you so well, we walked and talked and you shared your Candy Bars with me..”
But before she is able to say these words...

I WOKE UP!

And I was shaking, saying "OH MY GOD" and shivering, and I was cold and the next three days I was feverish with the Flu...
If I have ever had a Dream where I went somewhere and met someone... that was it.

Do we really meet those we dream of as they dream of us?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow - you had me suckered in from the start.....even though you warned me from the start it was a dream - i really believed you did this!!!

I wish I could answer that question.....for me dreams of people in my past are more reminders to say what i need to say NOW to the people who matter to me right NOW....and not let another moment slip away through my fingers.......

rdg

Barbara said...

I knew it had to be a dream when you walked from Cleveland to Detroit. That's a helluva long way. But that said, why don't you pursue Donna electronically while you are awake? It might be fun to reminisce. I'm sure she would be flattered by your dream.

bulletholes said...

I always wonder if I made as big an impression on Donna as I did on my Mother (and myself)...

soubriquet said...

I'm a dreamer. And I love other people's dreams.
I hope, somewhere, Donna reads your post. Maybe she dreams of you, of the schoolkids you once were.
Barbara's right. Donna's out there, somewhere.

soubriquet said...

I just posted one of my dreams. red-dirt-girl, Barbara- AH! Lynn Truss! I know who you are, in a bloggish way, your turn too, and why not pass the idea along to other likely dreamers?

GrizzBabe said...

Don't you just hate dreamus interuptus?

Anonymous said...

grizz-babe - LOL!!!!!!!!! that one's a keeper!

Old Lady said...

I like that you post your dreams, they are very interesting!

You had me, like Barbara, until you started walking.

Annelisa said...

If she's on your mind, maybe you need to think about her for some reason... even if it's to let her go...

I was actually getting all shivery and cold walking with you on that long journey... How come she got the Chopper!?! :-D

Do we meet in our dreams? I think maybe we do.

Mother of Invention said...

I was thinking that this sounded almost like something you'd really do! Is there any way you really could find her? Wouldn't that be cool? Nothin' to lose!

bulletholes said...

"for me dreams of people in my past are more reminders to say what i need to say NOW to the people who matter to me right NOW....and not let another moment slip away through my fingers.......

Well said by the RDG...
Sadly i would be surprised to find that Donna remembered me at all... I have to remember that the original story is more about Mom and I than Donna...
I really can't describe how torturous it was to wake at that point in the dream...

soubriquet said...

GrizzBabe said...
"Don't you just hate dreamus interuptus?"

Finnish rock-man Juice Leskinen's band was called 'Coitus Interruptus'
my favourite?"The Pieksamaki Railway Station Blues", (yeahhh!). Band member Mikko Alatalo is now a member of the finnish parliament.