Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Stuck inside of Philly
What is the meaning of a dream where I can't get out of Philadelphia?
I don't know why I was in Philadelphia. I had driven there with two others - a poet I haven't seen in a few years & a girlfriend from when I was 21. She may have been registering for college. I wandered a large store & noted that a nearby neighborhood looked kind of run down & probably dangerous. I don't know Philly beyond center city & the historical & arts locations. I've seen a few concerts at the Spectrum in South Philly, easy to reach from Jersey. When I drove to Philly once for a performance at Temple University I followed precise directions & had no idea where I was in relation to the rest of the city.
In the dream, trying to drive back to Jersey, we were on a limited access highway headed toward a Delaware River bridge, but I didn't know which bridge. I was hoping it was the familiar Walt Whitman but it felt more like the Ben Franklin, an old commuter bridge to Camden with confusing connections on the Jersey side. I saw an exit sign for Rutgers, which would be downtown Camden, an awful place, & another for Bristol PA, a town north of Philly with a narrow lift bridge, interesting if you're sight-seeing bridges. If the Rutgers exit went to the Ben Franklin, where was I going if I went straight ahead? I was so befuddled that I stopped the car. At that point I told myself to end the dream & wake up, I was not hassling it anymore. If I figured it out & got to Jersey I'd still have to find the Turnpike, & I didn't want to drive around the streets of Camden, the most unpleasant city in Jersey.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I don't know why I was in Philadelphia. I had driven there with two others - a poet I haven't seen in a few years & a girlfriend from when I was 21. She may have been registering for college. I wandered a large store & noted that a nearby neighborhood looked kind of run down & probably dangerous. I don't know Philly beyond center city & the historical & arts locations. I've seen a few concerts at the Spectrum in South Philly, easy to reach from Jersey. When I drove to Philly once for a performance at Temple University I followed precise directions & had no idea where I was in relation to the rest of the city.
In the dream, trying to drive back to Jersey, we were on a limited access highway headed toward a Delaware River bridge, but I didn't know which bridge. I was hoping it was the familiar Walt Whitman but it felt more like the Ben Franklin, an old commuter bridge to Camden with confusing connections on the Jersey side. I saw an exit sign for Rutgers, which would be downtown Camden, an awful place, & another for Bristol PA, a town north of Philly with a narrow lift bridge, interesting if you're sight-seeing bridges. If the Rutgers exit went to the Ben Franklin, where was I going if I went straight ahead? I was so befuddled that I stopped the car. At that point I told myself to end the dream & wake up, I was not hassling it anymore. If I figured it out & got to Jersey I'd still have to find the Turnpike, & I didn't want to drive around the streets of Camden, the most unpleasant city in Jersey.
Labels: dreams
