Water Dreams IV and V

Water Dream IV, Monona Swamp Zona

On January 29th, 2011, I dreamt I descended a steep park pathway that used to be Monona Path next to the newish Convention Center. It was wet dirt, slowly slicking with rising lakemud. The path led to a green bottom of shimmery ooze, wet grass, and sinking algae. The poorest people in Madison, many of Hispanic, African or south Asian heritage, were playing and frolicking in the mud, sometimes getting stuck or diving under, some laughing, some looking worried, and a few of them pulling themselves onto the wet grass for football kick or toss in the park. Many people were swimming, nay crawling, far out inside the lake itself, which swoll with waves of mud broken by rippling rivers of water on top of the brown. When I myself got to this lakeshore park, I suddenly sank to my hips, then swim-crawled, clambered toward higher ground to the North.

Water Dream V, The Wave-Swamped Clique-Isles of Mendota

Further North was Lake Mendota. It looked like a colossal indoor swimming pool. The embankments were made of steel, glass and cement. No trees or grass grew along the shores. It had a raw beauty, if only for its sheer expanse of water. The far north banks could vaguely be sighted, where people were sitting, dangling their feet into the lake as if it were a manmade basin. No one seemed to have any cars or boats close to the water. They were all afoot, or already out on the lake. I stood on the Union side (south), had a full view of all ends of the water. I walked along this waterfront westward, seeing islands floating like rafts, rocking on the waves. Hordes of people clustered on each island. Some isles rocked, swayed but were anchored, a little wave-washed. Others freefloated across the water, sometimes partially capsizing or flooding.

I swam out. Pulled my body up onto one island raft after another, but found each one too crowded, and the people only stared into nothingness, or looked down, or yelled into the air at no one and no thing in particular. Every time I came to a water-island, I jumped off back to sea, seeing I didn't fit on or in. On some isle-rafts stood exclusively students. Other rafts had hipsters or geeks or other (for me) cosmetic, xenophobic, ephemeral cliques which nonetheless strictly floated on one bit of rock or another and only on that one. Shorewood Village had the grandest isle, but it was ringed round with a high-voltage fence! I went to the far west shore then, saw this huge craggy thing out in the water, like a mountain rising up from the shore so steep you couldn't hope to climb it. The top looked like a glass-like obsidian top to topple off. I swam round to its lower access point, climbed on, then began slipping down toward the water no matter which end of it I walked on. I finally made a leap for shore, left Lake Anti-Social and Lake Mud, left BOTH behind.