what now, city boy....

Saturday morning---the past three days at Friends, very full days, both in terms of work, but also feeling very happy about the great appreciation that I experience there. Really in a good place. Four more school days to go--no work scheduled yet---but whatever happens, will definitely go to the Christmas Assembly--always fun, and  really looking forward to seeing some of last year's graduates, who usually return. Should be good.
Last night---returning from the full day at Friends, found myself physically very tired, so that precluded any movies, plays, or visiting bars. Stayed in the apartment, felt very restless--body tired, mind wanted to be somewhere else. Finally got to sleep around 11. Two full dreams, in one, I was at a Stadium event, when a loud explosion happened, and I saw the top of a layer of the stadium fall off. I immediately went under the table for protection--But the danger ended, that is all I remember of dream 1.
Dream 2; far more potent---I have, for some reason, taken a bus from around 125th street over a bridge that goes into the Bronx. I am very aware that I am moving into a mostly black and hispanic neighborhood, and a neighborhood of poverty. It is the day, the sun is out, probably a Sunday. The bus enters the Bronx, then takes me to my destination---a large art deco apartment house on the Grand Concourse, near 161st. I am very aware that this is an area that in my growing up years was all white and Jewish, and that I could have gone to parties or dated women my age in that apartment house. Now, however, I enter the courtyard, a large rectangle, fronting on the street. It is filled with many hispanic families---they seem to me to be middle class, all playing with their children, they line the courtyard, all the playing is friendly---still I feel like an outsider---what am I doing there? Finally I hit the center of the courtyard, sitting there in the center is an older white woman--it is very clear that she is not hispanic---looking straight ahead. I turn to face her---I think, wow! this older woman, obviously Jewish, is someone whom I could have dated when I was in high school or thereabouts. I try to understand what she is doing there---she shows no sign of discomfort at being the "other"> She says nothing to me, I don't speak to her, outside, the sun is shining on the Concourse---the dream stops.
What to make of it---not sure---realize that in some way I am fascinated by the changes in that neighborhood, trying to understand how one reality replaced another. Whenever I see one of those art deco houses, in pictures, or on google maps, my mind immediately snaps back to my childhood and the way there neighborhoods were part of my family reality. So what was the dream telling me---am  I only myself in the dream. Recently at a forum at Bronx Documentary Center I ha a conversation with  white woman photographer, about my age, who had just bought a co-op on the Concourse, near where I had the dream--she had been priced out of Greenpoint, was raised in Flushing, and was adjusting to this change. She was not the woman in the dream, but----
This morning: firmed up my appointment to meet my friend Ben, an actor now on hiatus from a tour, at the Public. Should be fun, I always enjoy my conversations with him. Tonight, go to Ars Nova for a play that a friend of mine is in. Should see many that I know.
Will report on all of that soon.