DREAM: felon to Guest

I dreamed I was a student again at Oberlin. I was in rehearsal, acting in someone else's play, when they came and put me in handcuffs and took me away. "You have not paid your tuition," they said. I owed $2,900 just to get current, but the next $6,000 was due in a week.

They took me to one of the administrative offices to wait. Expensive desks in a dark, cool, windowed room with greenery outside. It looked like an expensive college, which Oberlin is. As I was looking out the window, I heard the guy who had brought me in, snickering to two other women about me. "And get this -- on Rachel's performance goals, she wrote that one thing she wanted for 2005 was a million-dollar Request bonus." The ludicrousness of someone in cuffs about to be kicked out/fired thinking she was worth a million dollars in one year knocked them silent. They just sat there, shaking their heads, sipping coffee. They thought I was delusional.

Galvanized, I got up and went over. "The question said "What do you WANT,"" I said. "And in my field, of computer science, asking the right question can lead to answers which make jillions of dollars for the company. If I did that here, and Oberlin was raking in jillions of dollars from this --" They had stopped laughing. Aware that computer people DO sometimes spawn rivers of gold, they were listening. "-- Then," I went on, "A million-dollar bonus would be less than 1% and you'd be happy to pay me it, for having the idea."

I felt happy, and less ashamed.

They made a phone call. A man came to get me. I gasped. He was slim, quiet, about 5'10", in his 50's, wearing khaki pants and a white shirt. I recognized him. His name started with an S, and sound Russian or Polish. He was the head of the Research Lab here, which did mostly computer science and physics, like the Compute Science research group at Xerox PARC back in the day. Except this guy was quiet, an introvert, and at a whole different level than Bob Taylor. People reacted to him like he was Einstein, or Hillis, or Feynman. A thick hush fell whenever he began to talk.

I put my arm through his and he began to walk me back across campus to his lab. I couldn't stop crying. It was the same feeling as when Eugenio told me I could live in Grotowski's room -- an honor so high, and so personal, I hadn't even been aware I had wanted it.

He led me back to his group. 35 scientists, all wearing shades of tan and white, were seated on the floor & leaning against the walls, in a small room. It had a lab bench up front, like chemistry class. I squeezed in to the far back corner, between some guys who were miffed at having to make room for me. It had the feel of the Dealer's Choice meetings at PARC -- where one researcher would put their work up, and everyone else would help think about it.

Dr. S. began to talk quietly about what he had been thinking about. He was signing in American Sign Language as he talked; they said Ken Harrenstien, my friend who was an MIT network-architecture guy, had just left. But Dr. S. ceased to speak aloud, and kept signing, and I realized, he was only talking to me. No one else understood him. There was a rustle in the room as they began to stare at me, realizing I must be Somebody. My sign was rusty, so I kept missing words but getting fragmented drifts.

"You... cry, kiss cheek, come home..." he signed, and gestured to a Japanese waitress who went to bring the two of us hot soup in styrofoam containers. And then came in again with a low Japanese table, and big bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy, and turkey for everybody. "You... think... here, synthesis, all, all, all -- " He went on to quietly lay out the bones of his computer science/physics/metaphysics world, and I realized I was being invited to bring ALL my intuition to think about this problem.

I started to cry again. I was so happy to be back among MINDS. I crave the sea of quicksilver thinkers the same way I crave the thick emotional/physical fluency of theatrefolk. I was having the same feeling I used to have whenever all Ken's MIT buddies would get together. When Danny Hillis talked as we ate Chinese food, I'd feel so comfortable and happy playthinking.

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From debtor-felon to gifted Guest.... in one dream... I hope that's what 2005 has in store for me. I woke feeling hopeful about Google. Bootcamps. Life coaching. It's all the same thing.

Perhaps BOTH my universes have been right for me: the fiery worlds of computer science, and the mythic worlds of theatre. Because I feel AND think. Perhaps at some level I am seeking a constituency, of people who can also do both with ultimate fluency. Ahhhhhh, yes. That's why I'm always seeking out the thinkers in theatre... hmm, well, and I seek the thinkers in computer science, as well. But the very fineest sentiences, the best-of-breed, whose soft minds vault anywhere, and connect the heart, home, art, beauty, paradigms, architecture, far nebulae. The ones that can scale, and work on all levels at once.

I like rigorous, leaping conversations -- fast, far, true. Where you're warming up and jumping orbitals, until FINALLY your whole being gets used. I feel like there are banks of processors/lights inside me that I turn on when the problem gets hard enough. I love that feeling of being nothing but light, an ocean of empathy/pattern-mapping light. I feel mapped to the universe.

Conversations with Giancarlo, Radmila, Kris, Jeff, Juval, Rob, Bruce Horn, the McCarthy's, Eugenio, Jennifer & Joseph, Bart make me feel that way. So do Bootcamps, and rehearsing classical or devised plays.

Ahhh. I feel great. Time for cheesey scrambled eggs with mushrooms & green onions, some rosemary-basil toast, and a grapefruit/mandarin fruit dish. And hot black chocolate-flavored coffee. YES! L'chaim, my dears... l'chaim.