The first thing I can remember from the dream was that my neighbor, Paul, and my brother, Blake, and I were at some large outdoor market. It looked like a big food court, but it was outside. It was almost like being at some food festival or something, but it seemed to be a permanent structure. It was dusk and the lights were turning on. The setting reminded me of some scene from a Neil Gaiman book or a Jack Vance story. To the left was some establishment that seemed like mix between a Harley Davidson rally, and old-timey saloon, and a modern country western bar. People were hanging out, drinking, talking. It took up a pretty large area. There were some dudes to our right with their shirts off practicing line dancing as if they were about to take the stage for a show or something. I questioned what we were doing and if we had happened upon a strip club or something. We decided to investigate and realized it was a "professional" barber shop. We kept tossing out that word, "professional", as if it meant something more or needed to be capitalized. We finally made out way to that back where the haircuts were happening. There were a bunch of chairs and guy cutting other guys’ hair quickly and efficiently while people watched and cheered and drank. We decided to get some trims, although Paul has no hair. We didn't quite have enough cash (and they only took cash), we realized, but (apparently) its common practice for the barbers to take a little bit less money if you pay them under the table in cash. All Paul had was a check. We decided to pitch in all our cash and checks to try to get haircuts. Paul struck up a conversation with one of the barbers by a long, beige counter, under a string of yellow lights, at the front of a huge white tent lit up by lanterns. He was an older Russian man. Paul signed over his check to him, which was a little oversized and was green with orange borders. It was a check for 30 dollars from his work. The older barber said he would take less than the advertised price if it was cash and that this was a common practice among “professional” barbers, but that we need to keep it quiet. He said he would call us and we left.
In the next moment of my dream it was just my brother and I. We were in downtown Rockford, IL, where I'm from. He was being weird and aloof and seemed very young. Upon reflection, I think this is pretty symbolic of our real relationship. We don’t talk as much as I’d like. He has his own life and world and it makes me sad. I still see him as my little brother, but he’s almost 30. I often wish we could go back in time so I could try to sure up our relationship. It seemed we had some free time before we were going to meet up with our family. I asked him where he wanted to go. He said he wanted to go to a building that was near our old church, downtown. This area is NOT a good part of town and there is a lot of crime and issues in this area. When we were kids we didn’t notice much. We just parked at the church, crossed the street, and went in. It was when we got older we realized the surrounding area had gotten bad. I told him maybe we shouldn't walk around down there. He said he wanted to check out the building because it had been shot up in a drive-by.... in my eyes, confirming my position of not going. But off we went. Quickly, though, the dream brought us to Chicago. We were downtown Chicago outside the big Macy's or Marshall Field's or whatever it is now. It didn’t look like Chicago, but we knew it was. I thought maybe we should grab a snack. I mentioned finding a place that sold cinnamon rolls or something. We decided to go in to the department store instead and walk around a little. We both used to go there with our parents as kids to see Santa. (Rockford is only about 2 hours from Chicago and we usually took the train in from Harvard). We went in, but the giant department store seemed more like a really crowded old house. A big house... but really crowded and old. There were racks of weird clothes everywhere. It actually felt like one of those county home stores or a craft fair or something. Like all the clothes had been handmade from fabrics found at Michael's. I found a table that had some cookies and a few M & M's. I grabbed a couple of the M & M’s but left the cookies as they were wrapped and I wasn’t sure they were free. I then realized I was holding my little baby son and he was starting to get upset. He needed to be changed. Everything was super crowded and I couldn't find a bathroom or anything. I headed down to the main floor and ended up in a basement, which felt like really any home basement. The kind you hung out in with your friends in high school. Low ceiling, shitty old green carpet, a used up couch, and a Formica counter and sink left over from when someone started to renovate and stopped. I headed for the counter where a teen-aged girl was standing in front of a mirror. She was putting in her retainer and upon seeing me freaked out and ran away. I then realized I was in the staff lounge area. But it was too late. I needed to change my son, so I did. Soon enough a bunch of my friends (none of them whom I recognized) found me and we laughed about how we were hanging out in the staff lounge. We stayed down there for a while and I told them about the girl with the retainer freaking out.
As far as dreams go, it was pretty good. Not scary or crazy, but not overly stimulating. Very vivid, though. It never quite got to lucid. The least vivid part, but the part that stuck with me the most was the stuff with my brother. It makes me want to call him today, and I think I will. I’m not sure dreams really mean all that much, but maybe they give us messages we should listen to sometimes.
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