Oregon dreams I've had while living in Virginia

Hi everyone. I love you. Since I've neglected to write these all down as they came to me, I will present to you here a compilation/medley/summary of the Oregon dreams I've had over the past few months.

First of all, I dreamed that John and Doug came recruiting at Bethel, and who did they recruit but my little sister Betsy (who in real life would never, ever go to the OE). John and I were discussing this in the car together. He was like, "Yeah, at first all that blonde hair was a turn-off, but now I really like her."

I was worried about how she would fit in, but then I remembered how good she is at baking. I mean, she could be the next Alison.

Next dream. We all went to Lincoln for a reunion. When I got there, I walked into a room where Sharon was lying in a queen-sized bed. There was a fan in the room, set to high-speed. Some others entered the room. Lil' Mike was one of them. Then Rachel Fox came in and I hugged her and cried. Then I went to see Nancy, and hugged her, and cried.

And then recently, I had ANOTHER dream that my sister went to the OE. Only this dream actually took place at Lincoln, and we were all there, plus some Newbies, and it gave me great anxiety that Betsy Payette didn't fit in at all.

That's all for now. And I would just like to say that I miss you all more as time goes on, and I dream of you more as time goes on, and when I go back to Minnesota in 1.5 weeks I promise to make some serious phone calls. And if anyone is feeling at all antsy or anxious or in need of a vacation, please, PLEASE come visit Minnesota where I will provide you with a bed and some food and all the love in the world.

Yours,

Kasey

A Wild Party with Elise and Lil' Mike.

Elise and I went to visit Lil' Mike at his parents house in California. Lil' Mike showed us all around his room, which had brown carpet and wood-paneling on the walls and a bunch of lamps hanging from the ceiling. I don't remember all the transitions in this dream, but somehow we decided to have a big party and at one point I was sitting on a big armchair drinking a lot of wine straight from the bottle. Again, I don't know exactly how this fits, but at another point one of my philosophy teachers from Eastern was there, reading a quote from Dante, apparently, from an overhead projector. It was supposed to be a quote about love, but all I remember from the quote is that the professor said, "boobs," and I thought that was a weird thing for Dante to say. The last word in the quote wasn't an English word at all and used really weird characters that were made up of lines and dots, and when the professor got to that word, he stopped and Elise pronounced it correctly. Somehow Elise knew that language.

Eventually Elise, Lil' Mike and I fell asleep at this "party" we were having, and when I woke up in the morning, the three of us were sleeping on the floor of Lil' Mike's room in the shape of a T and there was nothing left in his room. I got up, looked around and felt ashamed because I got so drunk at the party I didn't remember anything after sitting in that chair and drinking. I left the room and went downstairs and there were three papasan chairs each piled high with clothes and sheets. Lil' Mike's mom and younger sister were standing in the room talking and at this point I noticed I had a tattoo on my arm and one on my stomach. I went back to the room where Elise and Lil' Mike were still sleeping and Elise woke up and said, "Whoa..." and I said, "I know." And then she said, "Well, I think it's a good thing..." (Lil' Mike wakes up in the middle of this sentence--and the good thing Elise is referring to, I think, is the fact that everything in the room is gone) "...because it was starting to feel like a dirty room, you know?" When Lil' Mike heard that, he got a little defensive and said, "Yeah, but it was clean."

That's all I got. I miss you guys so much. I think once you all come out to Holden (because we're just going to slowly convince all of you to come...) we should plan out our little community. And it will be grand.

A Bit of Nostalgia, or: I Haven't Had a Dream, So I'm Posting This Instead

I haven't been able to remember my dreams for a while now. I mean, for all I know they are about Oregon, but they all flee to the far corners of my mind as soon as I wake up, so I've got no idea. However, I assume if they were about Oregon I'd be both happier and sadder when I woke up. As it is, I'm pretty much just like, "whatever, lets get this over with." Okay, that may be an exaggeration. Also, this isn't what I wanted to say. All of this is superfluous/extra material--I know, I know; most of the time extra material goes at the end of something, but I'm trying to shake things up and, hell, I felt like writing this first.

What I really want to say is something that won't seem too great, or profound, or revealing, or any of that other good shit that would make me feel better about saying it. What I really want to say is this: I miss you.

Andrew and I went back to Oregon for a couple of weeks--Mike came down for the second of those weeks which, let me tell you, was one of the great moments of this past year--and worked with Doug and some other Ye Olde OE students on the mountain. If you're thinking how great that sounds, let me tell you something: it was. After that, we--Andrew and I--headed up to Seattle and flew from there to London. For the next month and a half or so we backpacked around Europe. One of the things we talked about from the flight out to the flight back was how it felt weird to be returning to our "homes" and not to Oregon. We felt like we should be going and telling our stories to all of you, to Doug, to Nancy and John, to Greg and to Heather, to all of you who, when it comes down to it, really understands us better then our biological families do. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and my brother, but it's fucking strange to be here. It's fucking strange that I'm not with you.

So, I understand that Holden has been a place where people keep on going to. Ashley, Elise, Chance, and I heard that Kasey may be going in the spring. If the people I love are going out there, then I'm coming to. Also, when are we going to start our own community?

I'll make lemonade and cookies.

Now I am going to go to sleep. Hopefully I will dream of you. If not, know that I think of you all every day, and when I'm not thinking of you, I'm usually thinking of whether or not pelicans are cute or scary.

Sam

Childhood Toys

It's been several hours since I woke up from this dream, about 12, so I can only remember a few of he major points. A great deal of this dream centered around OE people, and focused on childhood "memories." We were all walking/hitch-hiking to an airport, at one point we got on a white semi. Then it stopped in the middle of the empty road , which had a small structure nearby that I think we were trying to get passports from. Somehow the process involved discussions of childhood toys and other similar topics.

At a later point- I can't remember the stuff in between- we reached the airport. It was small and shady, and the airport people were jerks. (Well, I guess that's reality bleeding over haha I strongly dislike airports, security BS, and flying). Everything felt rather peculiar because I was trying to think of the details, such as: where are we going?, where is our luggage?, do we all have passports?, how/when did we buy tickets? Basically things none of you seemed to notice or care about. We were all children at this point, instead of adults just discussing our childhood stories. I got a weird video screen flash of all your passports- which consisted of a picture of your faces, next to your favorite childhood toy. Unfortunately I can't recall what your toys all looked like- it might have been interesting to see if I was picking up some crazy psychic wavelengths. I think I saw Duncan, Lyndi, Ashley, Scott, and Rachel's toy-passports. One of them was a dog, a long-haired brown dog, sort of like a brown golden retriever, although I think it was a real dog that went with us. Then someone else had a doll, and another had a white bear with a sewn on face that had a blue nose. Perhaps our destination was some Never Never Land sorta place. We never made it past the shot of me seeing all your toys next to the child-yous. It was fun to see you all so careless and curious walking in the airport, even though the security people were annoyed with you :) I'm not sure if I was a little kid too or not. It'd be an awesome alternate reality where we all get to see each other as children and play together. I think that is something we should try to do in the next life. I miss you all.

This is hanging up in the house where I live. I always think it is such a perfect and simple description of the OE. I miss and love you all!

this morning i was terribly grumpy because my alarm woke me up mid oe dream and i hated leaving such a good place and space in time.

but here is what happened:

i was in lincoln again only it didn't look like it but i still knew it was lincoln. there was one cabin instead of many, and each room had several bunkbeds. i went with my friend madelyn from hope, and the new oe crew had just arrived. they were having an orientation type thing and i remember watching from a second story window as they ran around in circles down below. they were very rambunctious. it felt a lot like summer camp actually - only all the parts of summer camp i hate - mostly stupid games and loudness.

it made my heart hurt because it didn't really feel like the oe anymore.

i also remember looking through the rooms with bunkbeds trying to find my friend lauren's bed who is gonig to the oe this year. i wanted to leave her a note telling her she was lovely. when i found her bed i realized it had all the same bedding as my bed has - even my stuffed seal named molly.

later, you all showed up and everything felt right again. i had an epiphany in my dream that i announced to everyone which was that what made oregon, oregon, wasn't the place, but the people. i felt at home again once everyone else showed up.

only, i remember saying it much more eloquently than that and feeling impressed with myself for my eloquence.

it's always a pleasure spending time with you all.

yours,
llw

Kasey, Pleathure, and Central Asia

So, after 48 hours of being awake I had the wierdest dream about Kasey.....

After flying into Omsk, Russia, my mom, my aunt, and I were picked up by Iggy (a Kazakhstan student my own age who has lived with my family for the past three summers) and his father and driven across the border into Kazakhstan. Mind you, it was after an ENTIRE day of intense touring of Moscow (imagine Red Square, St. Basil's Catherdral, the state's russian art gallery, and part of a Russian Orthodox church service) and a red-eye flight (at 1:55 am) from Moscow to Omsk, Russia.

Anyways, after getting through the border I was stressed and exhausted. It would have been nice to sleep in the car, but Kazakhstan does not invest a whole lot of money on infrastructure - the road was covered with potholes. More than once we hit one going so fast my head hit the ceiling of Iggy's dad's SUV. Anyways, I nodded off in the back just long enough to get a full picture of Kasey, pleathure and all, snoring on the floor of the cookhouse after a very fun and very successful Harvest Dance. Then we hit a pothole going 1 million miles an hour and my head snapped back. My neck STILL hurts.

Kasey, I'm not creapy - you are just a fox in that outfit. You should GO SPEED DATING IN IT! Just to be THAT GURL!

Kazakhstan says Привет (hello).

Lovinz galore,

Chance (or, as it is mispelled on my Russian visa - Чейнке (pronounced "Chyean-kye).

holden

last night i dreamed that a group of us went to holden village to visit people there. i think it was everyone that is actually living in holden, plus a couple people that aren't really - i remember kasey being there.

i think when the group i traveled with to holden arrived it felt like all of the oe together again. there were mountains and someone commented on how here we were all together again in our place (that being the west).

i remember there was some snow on the ground too, but it was summer.

and i remember nancy approaching us and she was wearing a regal shawl. i hugged her and said, "nancy, i'm so glad you are here. i didn't know you were going to be here." and i felt really happy.

but she said, "yes you did know i was going to be here. you saw it on facebook." and she didn't seem amused. she acted like i was trying to schmooze with her and she wasn't having it.

i also felt like nancy had a son and i was dating him and that's why i felt so upset that she didn't like me.

but other than that, it was nice to be with you all again. really nice.

yours,
llw