I had a two-part dream.

The First Part

In the first part, I was arguing with employees and a manager in a big box retail store. The store was a combination of IKEA, Wal-Mart, Costco, and Academy, and the argument appeared to be over the employees taking something I had purchased, even though I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. At one point, I saw a slow cooker of chicken soup at the front of the store that I claimed was mine.

The store manager and employees kicked me out of the store, and they called the police. All I wanted was my ___?___ and the chicken soup. I found a busted-down van on the outside, where I hid out, and I began taking selfies with a disposable camera, thinking I could send them to a photo lab so that they would see that I was busy somewhere else and not culpable in our argument. I eventually drove off with the van, stealing it and driving it over towering highway interchanges.

The Second Part

In the second part, I was visiting my uncle, who, two days ago, had a kind of stroke called a transient ischemic attack. He was quiet but in good spirits. He took me to the backyard and showed me a fruiting Loquat Tree, which we call the misnomer Chinese Plum Tree in Texas. He said he stopped pulling the fruits anymore. He would cut branches at a time. It was better for the fruits and the tree, and he would repurpose the branches for Ikebana.

Inside, my uncle let me use a tube of special sunscreen that I applied liberally. I felt like I was taking too much. A young man was in the room; he exuberantly told me about the agelessness of people on 5^th Avenue. I said, “I’m not saying they are inhuman, but they are empty.”

Questions

How much time am I spending on things that don’t matter, searching for things that I can’t even put a name to, and claiming things that I could easily make for myself and not depend on others for? What kind of excuses am I making for myself? What meaningful things are going on in life that I should be paying attention to?