DREAMERS

After surgery last year I was told the anesthesia might make me have vivid dreams. And it did. Dreamed I was watching a parade on the corner of Main Street and Howard Avenue in Biloxi, wearing some ill-fitting, brown-furred and bear-like, outfit. I remember the noise, the crowd, and the parade’s units.

As a marching band was rounding the turn, I remember preparing to leave as I felt out of place in the crowd being dressed like a fuzzy-something and it not being Mardi Gras. I stuck out like a sore thumb. So as I turned to leave I gave a parting glance to the marching band coming by and saw myself marching in the band, playing the trumpet. Me the spectator watching me the trumpet-player. This startled me, and I woke up. Have no idea what this meant. It was a crazy dream.

According to Rosalind Cartwright, PhD, professor of psychology at Rush University in Chicago, her studies show dreams help you work through the emotion related to the feeling so that it is reduced by morning. It’s good for mood regulation. For example, divorced women who incorporate their ex-spouse or relationship into their dreams scored better on tests of mood in the morning. They were much more likely to recover from depression than others who did not dream about their marriage or could not recall their dreams.

There’s talk these days about dreamers. Not the dream-in-your-sleep kind but the kind who purportedly have aspirations. Everyone knows them as dreamers with a capital D. The general assumption put forth by the talking TV heads is that the dreams, or aspirations, of all Dreamers are good. But, not everyone dreams or aspires to things that result in good outcomes, for themselves or for others. And therein lies the rub.

My first personal encounter with Dreamers was after Katrina. I couldn’t find a roofer to help me with a leaky roof, all of them being very busy, and like many others was put on a long waiting list. So a good friend located some dreamers of sorts, a crew of fourteen, who were dreaming to make money putting roofs on houses that’d been damaged by Katrina, and he referred me to them. They put a roof on my house which to this day (as I sign the cross) has not leaked. That was twelve years ago. Apparently they knew what they were doing.

Interestingly, the main media often refers to these Dreamers as “people of color,” which when they do, seem to be disparaging something about being white or implying something along the lines that white people have some kind of advantage over “people of color,” and that this shouldn’t be so. And those making such reference seem to be mainly white, or colorless. This is odd. That is, pointing out color in making judgments, tangentially as it may be, about one group over another, as Reverend King himself gave a big speech once abhorring this very thing, dreaming himself that this referential judging on color would go away “one day.” That was 50 years ago. Looks like it will take longer for that to happen.

Anyway, like many others, I once had a dream. To be a doctor. I was fortunate with the help of government student loans to fulfill this dream. And, of course, I’ve had other dreams to come true. But then again, I’ve had some that have not. One can aspire and dream, but sometimes certain conditions get in the way.

Then, there are things I’ve never dreamed – like ever having the surgery I’ve had, or any number of other things, some of which have come as a surprise. Some dreams have been crazy, like the one just mentioned.

I know others who’ve had crazy dreams too.

In fact, we all know a woman who dreamed, and is probably still dreaming, of being president one day, who by the grace of a loving and gracious God, was denied her dream. Some say she has too much devil in her. Hers is indeed a crazy dream.

But on the other hand, another woman, high-ranking in the current administration, just might be dreaming one day to be president and who with maybe, say, a Mr. Trey Gowdy as vice-president, or them vice-versa, would make a formidable team. These are two dreamers whose dreams I think many people would like to have come true. But to others, this is a crazy dream too.

And there all kinds of dreamers.

There are those with and without color, who dream of robbing a convenience store, maybe hurting someone in the process.

Some dream of being mayor one day. And their dream comes true.

Some dream of living off the dole though they’re in their 30s and able-bodied. I know, because I’ve seen them and the denial papers from the Disability Determination Services.

Some dream about walking into our country, ignoring our laws, and taking advantage of those things the rest of us pay taxes to have. Not the least of which is to them free health care -- something everyone, colored and colorless, dreams of having. Dreaming of free health care is not a bad dream.

So it is a known fact that people of color, and those who are colorless, vary in what they dream about and aspire to. The seeming conundrum is what to do, and how to treat, the dreamers born of mothers who came here in defiance of the laws of our great land.

Since people of color, and those with no color, aspire to a variety of things, noble and ignoble, doesn’t it make sense that if we’re going to pass a law to address the illegalities of this situation that we establish laws that facilitate those dreamers who want to help others, that are contributing, building up? And by the same token, pass laws that rid, or protect our communities from those who wish to take advantage, tear down, and whose self-indulgence is at the expense of others, hurting them badly. It makes sense to keep the working, law-abiding person, and prevent entry into the country, using any means available, of those who are lawbreakers, ridding the land of the rats along the way.

That’s not such a bad dream.

Because one day you just might need sheetrock or a roof installed on your leaking house and there might not be anyone around to do it save for someone dreaming to make a few bucks in the process.