When I was a kid I had a recurring dream about being at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk with my family. My grandparents lived in a mobile home park at Natural Bridges just up the road from there for a while, so we’d go to Santa Cruz pretty often to visit. In the dream I walked along the beach and noticed a giant wave rising up, up, up toward the boardwalk. I never ran away. There was always this giant talking shark jaw floating just above my eye level and providing some kind of force field protection from the water as it crashed over everyone and everything else. I don't remember now what it said to me, but we’d always walk down around the far end of the boardwalk by the cruddy dirty stream area and head up the little gully.
Lately I've been having tsunami dreams pretty regularly. They are more frightening and less interesting than the apocalyptic dreams I had for a while in 1999, and the world is similar to the normal real world. Monday night’s featured a new Capitola-like beachfront area in SF with shops and restaurants. A friend of mine was out surfing and I was walking a big white dog. I noticed the tide suddenly sucking out into the sea and a few people started running as fast as they could toward the hills. I thought if I could just make it up the hill a bit I'd be ok. I made it pretty far by the time the incoming waves were visible and went to a rooftop crowded with other people. I hung on tight but the water didn't reach the roof. I was terrified my cats might drown, but water only came up to the 2nd story, so I knew they’d be safe up on the 4th. I wondered if my friend was able to surf the giant wave inland. Some people started to go back down to street level, but I knew the waves would surge again, so I waited around and called people on my cell phone.
Last week's tsunami adventure began with an Egyptian procession to a beach. I lived in the beach town but it was a town in a third world country somewhere. When I realized a tsunami was coming I ran home and ran up to my tiny apartment only blocks from the tourist beach. I climbed out the window and up the fire escape to the top floor and wrapped myself around the railings. The water came in and surged all around, but I was able to hold on. Then the water surged back out to sea and life went on. No big deal.
Posted by allison at March 1, 2006 02:25 PM