Sailboat Races

I had a dream about my dad last night.

More specifically, it was a dream in which he was the central subject, however I never saw him. It seemed to be more about my stepmom, in all honesty. The basic setting was along the California coast, in Santa Cruz where I lived from ages 8 to 16. My dad was apparently sailing in a race from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, and was in radio communication with my stepmom, who I guess was in a chase boat with her brothers.

I kept getting calls from my stepmom on my cell phone, even though I could hear my dad's voice just fine over the radio... the radio I didn't have. But I could hear him. He was working hard for his team. He was giving me play-by-play commentary. Or rather, he was giving out the commentary and it was like I could hear it on a scanner. I couldn't radio back, couldn't communicate with him. But I could hear him fine.

I just kept climbing around the cliffs that overlooked the ocean, searching for signs of my dad's boat, which never came within visual range. At one point, my stepmom called me on the cell, telling me what was going on with Dad. I told her I knew because I could hear him on the radio, and she didn't need to use her cellular plan minutes to basically repeat what he was saying and doing. She said she'd been taking pictures of the race from the chase boat, and that Dad's boat was in the lead in the home stretch. Then I saw her chase boat - it came in extremely close to the cliffs, and she saw me and raised her camera to take my picture. In doing so, she almost lost her balance and toppled overboard, but was hauled back by one of her brothers.

The meaning seems pretty clear to me. I still feel connected to my dad even though he's not visible to me, and I feel like sometimes my stepmom gets distracted by focusing on what's going on with me, and forgets her own precarious state. At least, that's how I interpret it.

For some reason this post was harder to write than I thought it would be. A lot of the time I'm very preoccupied by the loss of Sam. Today, I really miss my father.