Though I rarely discuss them publically beyond close friends and family, I have long been one of those people who have been blessed/cursed with intensely vibrant, realistic/surrealistic, often meaningful dreams. I usually remember them in extreme detail as they seem more like memories of recent events rather than fuzzy, misted dream recollections.
I have no idea why I have these dreams. Perhaps it’s because of my artistic nature, my right brain lean, my enchantment with the esoteric or a combination of all. I think it’s a bit genetic in nature as I’ve other family members with the same ability, my mother in particular was gifted in this department.
Sometimes these dreams are purely entertaining, joyful experiences filled with laugher and nonsense. Sometimes they are more somber steeped in symbolic imagery and detail. I’ve had uncannily prophetic dreams, dreams where I’ve had long heartfelt conversations with people long passed, and dreams filled with complete strangers spent walking the streets of ancient lands and other worlds.
And sometimes I have dreams filled with deep mystery that hint of messages from beyond and leave me feeling as if I must search for a missing puzzle piece before I can see the “big picture” of it all.
Last night was one of those experiences….
It began in a hospital. A hospital in some town in some state somewhere in this country. There had been a major renovation to the hospital – either a new wing had been added or one had been completely renovated.
I found myself in the dream space a few minutes after what must have been the ribbon cutting for the new addition. The area was filled with medical professionals, community leaders, and citizens of the town that seemed connected somehow to the renovation. Everyone was quite pleased with the new addition and there was much chatter amongst the attendees over bites of cake and sips of punch.
No one seemed to notice me at first and I was able to pass amongst the crowd as I pleased. I saw a printed program documenting the event on a desk and I decided to read it. That’s when I realized that the reason that I was there was that some of my art had been placed in the permanent collection of the hospital and was being featured somewhere in the renovation. For some reason, either I didn’t see or can’t recall exactly where this hospital was in the dream.
I still hadn’t been noticed by the crowd so I decided that I would explore the area myself and locate my art, as I was curious as to what work of mine was part of the collection.
I started off down a hallway to the left of where I had been reading the program leaving the chattering of the crowd behind me. The hallways were well lit with and painted a soft beige color. Everything sparkled with a feeling of newness to it. I still didn’t recognize my art so I continued deeper into a series of hallways and I soon realized that I had become lost in the process.
This made me slightly uncomfortable as I was now completely alone in a hospital with zero idea of where I or it was located. I decided that the best thing to do would be to try and back track my steps and listen for the voices of the crowd to find my way back to the main area.
I started back in the direction that I had came, but everything began to look the same and I was never certain that I was going in the right direction. That’s when it happened.
Suddenly, I found myself walking through a hallway that was darker and much cooler than the others. I realized that there were literally no lights fixture in the hallway. The hazy ambient light that was there was coming from an adjoining hallway that was separated from the one in which I was standing in by a wall of windows. The windows were of an old fashioned kind that had some sort of protective wire meshing incased within them. I stood in the middle of the hallway and looked through the glass into the other side.
It was like looking into the hospital’s past. I’m no expert on vintage industrial interior design, but I would guess it to be anywhere between the late 1930’s to the mid 1950’s. The floor had been yellowed and burnished with use and the light fixtures were of an earlier time. The light was yellowish which cast everything with a vintage sepia hue. A few chairs and a desk or two also had the same retro look and feel. It was then that I noticed the door.
Across and slightly to the left of where I was looking was a door to a room which caught my attention for no apparent reason. I found myself staring at the door for what seemed like quite some time as if I were waiting for something.
Then, quite suddenly, something startling happened.
The door knob transformed in a photograph of a little girl. It was about an 8.5” by 11”, black and white studio portrait of a lovely little girl with pigtails and a big smile. She was about 7 to 10 years old and the photo seemed to be taken around the same time period as the wing that I was looking into. I found myself entranced with the photograph. She had dark blond hair, blue eyes, and she was wearing what appeared to be a hand made knit sweater over a blouse of darker color. I could feel a connection form between my eyes and hers. I could sense that the girl was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t quite make it out. It was as if there was static filling the airwaves.
Without warning, the photograph began to very slowly turn as if by two invisible hands. I could hear the clicking of the old mechanism of the door lock and I watched as the door creaked open revealing a completely dark room that seemed to go for an eternity. I felt a rush of cool air come over me and the sound of wind.
At that very moment that I was able to peer into the cavern of the room, the lights in the hallway in which I was standing popped on with a brilliant bright flash.
I found that the wall of windows was simply gone – now replaced with the sparkling newness of the other beige walls of the new addition. I found myself now face to face with one of my abstract paintings – now part of the permanent collection and hanging on the wall that a nanosecond before had been a portal to the hospital’s past.
I was stunned by the event and found myself shaking my head to clear away the confusion when suddenly I heard voices to my right.
It was a small group of nurses, some of whom were long retired, that were in attendance for the celebration. They said that they had been looking for me and they were glad to see that I had located my art work in the building. My face must have still registered the intensity of my experience as they asked me if anything was wrong.
I told them what I had just witnessed and they were stunned. One of the older nurses asked me to describe the girl in the photograph. I did so. Another of the other retired nurses began to weep as a third told me that when they were young women and working in the hospital, that where we were standing had been another area completely and that this particular spot had been the location of a room where long ago the little girl in the photograph had spent her final days before succumbing to the effects of a tragic event.
The nurses said that the entire staff had become very taken with the child. That said that she had such charisma, charm, and optimism that they all fell in love with the little girl. They were absolutely devastated when she passed.
The same nurse then told me that one of the child’s visitors, a gentle and mature man - perhaps a relation, insisted that the girl’s photograph be hung on the doorknob outside of the room so that he could find it more easily during visits as he would often become lost in the hallways of the hospital.
And at that point in the conversation, I simply woke up. I never got the girl’s name, the name of the hospital, the name of the visitor, the tragic event, or even the year.
What I did get is a haunting memory tinged by time and the sense that there may be much more to come from the little mysterious girl in the photograph…
Art appreciator and Music Promoter Sydney Arzt. 
When I am in the grocery stores of the great metropolis of Washington, DC., I notice that the majority of shoppers are using some kind of reusable bag, or at least, they have brought a plastic bag with them and are using it anew.
What's the difference? In January 2010, Washington, DC passed a "Bag Law". The law, the first of its kind in the U.S., requires any District business selling food or alcohol to charge 5 cents for each disposable paper or plastic carryout bag. The business keeps 1 cent (or 2 cents if it offers a rebate when customers bring their own bag), and the remaining 3 or 4 cents goes to the new Anacostia River Protection Fund.
Though controversial when it was passed, almost immediately, businesses began seeing a drastic reduction in bag usage, and environmental clean-up groups witnessed fewer bags polluting DC waterways.
Personally, I think the law is brilliant and I'm happy to do my part. Reusable grocery bags are affordable and easily found in practically every city in the country. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. offers incredible bags created specifically for The Elizabeth Haub Foundation which are distributed exclusively through the A&P Family of Supermarkets. I'm holding one in my hand in the photo above. I own about 10 of them in total. They are available for a mere 99 cents!
The bags are incredible! Not only do they easily hold at least 10 times the amount of groceries that the useless plastic bags hold, they are amazingly strong and durable, easily hand washable, and portable with extra sturdy and flexible double-grasp nylon handles. And, artistically speaking, they are also absolutely beautiful as each different bag features a stunning wild-life themed photograph in rich, vibrant color.
Why do I have 10 of these beauties? Because I use these bags for far more than just hauling groceries. I can fill them with art supplies, CDs, books, clothing and much more which makes transporting such items a breeze as I travel back and forth between destinations.
Though made in China (which admitedly doesn't fill my heart with joy), they are made from 100% post consumer recycled content. Better yet, a portion of the 99 cent purchase price goes to The Elizabeth Haub Foundation, an organization that works to support the development and implementation of necessary legislative provisions for the conservation and sustainable use of nature, as well as for humankind.
It's frustrating to me that I have seen so many Delawareans leaving the grocery stores with plastic bag after bag. Can they not get their head together about how harmful plastic bags are to the environment (especially here at the shore!) and how there are much better options so easily available. Perhaps they need an incentive. Why not a "Bag Tax" for the Delaware shore - perhaps nation wide!
Because in case you don't know by now, plastic bags are for losers.