1.24.2012

Tractor Mendelssohn dream


David and I were at my parents’ house after some sort of get-together, and my parents randomly decided to tell us at that point what their retirement plans were, since it was starting to come together for them. They were apparently planning to move to the coast of northern california, own a house on a peninsula, basically almost right in the water, and start farming there. They even had a model of the John Deere farm tractor they were going to use to show us. They were going to grow corn, using a new technique in which you can grow it in very wet land, up to several inches deep in water (apparently salt water is fine). I started talking to them about the risks involved with this, especially the possibility of something going wrong during harvest, and them losing the entire year’s work, but they seemed ok with that, after all, it’s just a retirement job. My dad said that he’d give the local tractor repairman a call (somehow referring to our local one in ME which made total sense) and have him kinda ready to come over if the tractor started messing up. I said, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have the John Deere repairman “on call” than the guy at our old tractor repair shop who doesn’t even like John Deere? My dad conceded that yeah that made more sense.
At that point, I had to get ready to go to work, so I started getting dressed up to go outside, putting a long-sleeve shirt on. David was playing a song on the piano, I think one that he composed. My mom was telling him that he had to get going really soon too. I left, and drove over to Penners where I was apparently going to work. I started going into the entryway, though I still had my hand stuck in one of the sleeves in the shirt I had been trying to put on. Mrs. Penner was there and said Hi. Then I noticed that David was somehow there already, and about to start practicing with a small group of violin players. I was incredulous as to how he got there before me, and I asked Mrs. Penner how he got there so fast, and she said something about him leaving before me, but I knew he hadn’t, but then something occurred to me that could have made it possible. I then grabbed a peach so I could start to eat it as I went out to the back deck. I noticed that there was a rather large soft and brown spot on it, so I bit that chunk out and went outside to spit it into the woods. Unfortunately there was some random man out there that I didn’t know, so I felt bad just spitting in front of him, so I tried to let the bad part fall out of my mouth into my hand so I could throw it instead, but only part of it came out, and I had to swallow the rest. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I said hello to the man, and we had a little small talk.
Then my viewpoint changed, and I was watching this young boy coming into the house to meet with these other violinists (in the background I could hear the Mendelssohn violin concerto coming from the group in the music room). He apparently decided he was supposed to know French, so when he went into the room and they all stopped to say Hi, he randomly gave this little speech which seemed like a bunch of random phrases that he knew in French all stuck together. Indeed, after he had said it, I could see in my mind’s eye a translation, like I was rewinding a movie and putting captions in, and it was just a bunch of random phrases. Kinda funny. Anyway, no one really minded, they all kinda chuckled, but he was only about 12 so no worries. Then, since he hadn’t been able to bring his violin, they gave him one to borrow. My viewpoint gradually shifted to first-person of the boy’s view, but more like a movie narrative, because I knew more than he did. He was a little chagrined that he had to play on a full size, since his was only a half size, but he gamely decided to give it a try. They made space in the circle for him, and he sat right between the first and second violinists, though he was thinking he wasn’t very special and was probably sitting between some of the lesser violinists. Anyway, they started to play, and low and behold, he was playing the solo part to the Mendelssohn violin concerto! The funny thing was, he didn’t realize it was the solo part. After a few bars, he stopped and started asking why his part was so much more “out there” than everyone else’s. His mom told him that it was ok, and I think he sorta figured out that he had the solo. His mom hadn’t told him, because she didn’t want him to be too nervous to play with other people, but I was thinking it probably would have been better if he knew how good he was, and was prepared to solo. He was apparently thinking the same thing, because he said that he wished he knew that, cause he would have practiced more! We all kinda chuckled at that, because he sounded amazing on the Mendelssohn. My dream started fading out, but I knew that the boy would keep trying, and I figured he’d do really well as a soloist.




5 comments:

Ali said...

Haha, dreams are so weirdly amusing sometimes. Thanks for telling me this one. It was a great story! :)

Unknown said...

Wow, Jonathan, you have great narrative voice! (and a weird dream, what were YOU trying to sort through :-P)

Jonathan Gerrans said...

Haha thanks Elwyn, though I think it was just my dream talking :P
and not sure where this dream came from, either. It was actually preceeded by quite a long detailed totally different dream that I didn't remember quite as well.

Barry Howe said...

This is how Sir Robert Louis Stevenson wrote most of his most famous stories. He wrote an essay about his method. He somehow figured out how to train his dreams to produce stranger than fiction stories that were also coherent.

Jonathan Gerrans said...

Huh, that's interesting... I rarely remember my dreams that well though, but maybe I could train myself to do that too...
I actually thought of writing it down because of what Tyler used to do - he used to write down all the dreams he could remember on a blog, but I'm not sure he's still doing that. The dreams are still there to look at though.

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