Perceived Realities

As I gradually come awake, I'm aware of the last fading remnant of my dream sliding away into oblivion; the tail end quickly glimpsed as it slithered away into the dark door, all that's left to remember the experience by...
Except 'glimpsed' isn't the right word.
It took a while to process, but I now realize why this dream had this strange yet familiar texture, falling between visual, symbolic, auditory, where meaning was there but the source felt so chimaeric...
I was dreaming in text.
I was dreaming in that mental state that translates letters on a page into image, sound and smell, without source and without engaging an awareness of the act of conscious reading.
Huh.
Explains a bit of how dreams can be so hard to remember... you're trying to reconstruct the act of reading, not recall.

Once again, The Move.

I've been moving for most of my life. My parents moved when I was a kid, then I moved to study, then work, then moved again as leases ran out, either salaries or rents went up, found rats nesting in the kitchen, got married... 
I thought the mother of all moves was in 2014 when I packed up a life, a wife, a baby and a country to fly nine thousand miles to a new continent. 

Hah.

Here we are again, and this one's the biggest yet, because we're packing it all up this time. Last time we came, brimming with relo assistance $$ and confidence, living out of 4 bags. This time, it's going to be a 20-foot container and everything is coming along. 

When you buy decent stuff, it shows. I happily gave away all my campaign equipment in 2014 because it was, frankly, worn out crap. What I have now is still crap, but it's better and pristine-new crap. 
When you buy decent stuff, there's a color scheme. For example, all black furniture. 
Little gewgaws like a hook to hang the headphones. 
Bags and pouches and boxes and cases. 
Enough extension cords and boards to reach the moon and light it up, too. 

There's also a sense of sadness - not in the detritus of finding things long thought lost and now useless, but in finding new, never-used things acquired on hope and dream, now looking at a future of gathering dust in a storage box. Snow boots. mittens. snow chains. carpet cleaner. jogging jacket. all the things Bombay will never offer an opportunity to use. 

But at the same time, there's also the determination that rides on a deeply-banked substratum of anger - mine. Why should I abandon what I want just because of circumstance? This life was mine to make of it what I wanted - what gives anyone else the right to take those things away? 

Interestingly, even here, there's a purge. As things start getting boxed up, drifts of plastic, labels, packaging, and all kinds of junk starts appearing magically - all the things you never knew having or getting. 

Some things never change, I guess. 

Doing the right thing

Listened to a fantastic PoV the other day - there's so much information in the world, it can't be processed, it must be filtered. And with that filter comes bias. And with that bias comes an erosion in the nature absolutes. 
Which means, you can't tell what's the 'right' thing anymore. 

In the past, there were codes, defined and accepted norms of behavior. You knew what you were supposed to do, and so did everyone else. You knew what the consequences of your actions would be. If good, you'd want them known, you'd crow about them, and if not, you'd hide them behind closed doors and in the dark of the night. 
If you were caught, you and everyone around knew what was to be done - ridicule, reprimand, punishment, banishment, excommunication, execution. 

Now, it's all suspect. Everything seems to be serving a hidden agenda, or even just an overt one. Everyone is surrounded by people who tell him he's right, and if he isn't, finding the right people to agree with you takes minutes - even if they live on the other side of the planet and need Google Translate to understand you. 
Everyone's in a bubble full of their own farts. 

Knowing this, living this, how can you imagine anything you believe is real? Anyhting you believe is right, someone else things is wrong and vice versa, and they're right there to tell you. 

In the past, there was a 'done' thing, which wasn't necessarily the 'right' thing - by the standards of me, here, now, with my education, culture, class, and social background -

But it stopped you second-guessing. 

There is no right or wrong, and there may never have been. 
But there's always an is, and a not is.

And if it is what it is - how does it matter either way? 

cracks

older now, i can see
cracks in reality
the hidden spaces around corners
under your feet, behind your head
squirming around your blindspot like an eclipse corona
i walk in sunshine
turn, quick,
gaps in the world
inside, dark figures, shadowed
whispered conversations in unknown language
levers pulled, buttons pushed
strings held, tangled, webbed
laughter
not the good kind
sometimes there are marionettes
not very good
jerky, frozen grins, see the strings
sometimes, worse, they come out in masks
talk to you
if you talk to them they invite you in
sometimes suddenly 
bits fall through and you see them scurry from the sun
chittering in short-lived panic of discovery
and we laugh
and sing
and dance
and be eaten