White Noise

Posted on 1 min read

I’m having nightmares again. But not the predictive nightmares of murder and terror. These are of the type where almost nothing happens. They’re regular interactions and they make my heart ache.

I have a dream where my grandmother, who died last year, is showing a quilt that she made to my daughter. She explains that she made the quilt out of feed sacks, which I remember her telling me they used to do on the farm. A piece of the truth interlaced into the dream. And then long stretches of déjà vu. Nothing true, but things I know so well.

They’re nightmares of foreboding. And I realize that it’s probably the cocktail of being back in Germany, and the book I’m reading, White Noise. I’m not able to place the book. It’s all dread and low grade constant panic adding up to something I can’t predict. And yet it hangs in the air, like it’s in the room with me. That’s how the dreams are. That’s how Germany is.