What Dreams May Come

I woke up from an uncharact- eristically long-ass sleep remembering a dream that's so telling of who I am, what I'm thinking, and what I want from life...

In the beginning of the dream, I'm Suzanne Somers, a la "Step by Step." (Don't ask.) In case you didn't know, "Step by Step" was a show back in the 90s that was basically a modern remake of "The Brady Bunch." Two people who've been married before get married to each other, and each of them have three kids. Suzanne Somers' character's name is Carol in the show, and her husband's name is Frank.

So in the dream I'm Carol, and I'm in this park with my mom (not really my mom, Carol's mom - which is strange since I don't remember the character of Carol's mom ever making an appearance on the show, but whatever). Only it's not a park that we're in. There are acres of grass and trees and all of that all around us - but it's not public property. It's the property that Frank and I own (again strange because Carol and Frank were working-class in the show and didn't own any land).

Anyway, there's a rope that looks a lot like clothesline, and it's shaped in an upside-down V. My mom and I are walking around my property while she's telling me that I'll regain my confidence to be a trapeze artist? tight-rope walker? I dunno - something that deals with heights (although, strangely, on the show Carol didn't have any occupation that dealt with heights), when I see this rope. My mom's lost in her uplifting schpiel about never giving up, and I notice that the rope, which somehow makes its way hundreds of feet in the air on an angle before coming back down on an angle, has a small plank of wood attached to it. The small plank of wood is hovering over the ground, parallel to the grass. I step on the wood, and much to my surprise, I'm lifted ten feet off the ground, and I'm hanging onto the rope for assistance with my balance. A step above the plank is another wooden plank, and I step onto it. That plank moves up ten feet. My mom, who's been jabbering on about how she has faith in my ability to regain my confidence, realizes that I'm in the air, on this strange contraption that Frank's made for me (he wanted to help me get over my newly-found phobia of heights), and she begrudgingly gets on a plank herself, so that she's two lengths behind me. I keep on going up until I can see all of our property, which looks something like this:

Then I get too afraid to move. I'm petrified and teetering on the wooden plank. My mom is sitting on her plank, calmly telling me to relax. She tells me to step back onto the previous plank, since I'm obviously uncomfortable where I am. "I can't!" I say, stubbornly. "I want to see where this rope will take me! I want to get to the end of this rope!"

"You'll get there when you're ready to get there," she says to me, soothingly. "Just step back onto the plank that you're comfortable on."

"But if I take a step back, that means that I'm admitting I'm not as close to my goal as I want to be."

"So what? Better you take a step back and get comfortable enough to keep going, than you fall and hurt yourself."

So I take a step back, and the plank lowers to a more decent elevation. I keep on going until I feel comfortable, and I end up on the same plank as my mom - which upsets me. I don't want to end up like her.

"Don't worry," she says when she sees how upset I am. "You want to get to the other end of this rope, and one day you'll get there. I'm never going anywhere. This is the end of my rope."

The episode ends, and the camera zooms out, and I'm no longer Carol. I'm someone watching Step By Step on TV and thinking, Oh. So that's how great-grandma did it... I never get a glimpse of what I look like, but I know that I'm attractive, female and Asian. Also, I know that I'm either in my late teens or early twenties. Lastly, I know instinctively (as is the case in most dreams) that the great-grandma my dream-character is referring to is Me. Not just that, but my spirit is watching over this girl because the livelihood of our entire extended clan is in her hands.

Let me explain first what I mean by "clan." Filipinos breed so much that Wutang should shame themselves into changing their name to "Fam." Both sets of my grandparents had more than eight children, and most of my aunts and uncles who have remained in the Philippines have had at least four kids apiece. Many of my first cousins have had three, four, sometimes five or six kids.

And that's not all, folks. Unlike the prototypical "American" household, family to the typical Filipino isn't something that's merely tolerated during holidays and birthdays. At least, that's not the way the Rubios roll. Like the members of the Mafia, we're up in each others' business for better or for worse. Sure, there's drama and internal strife now and again, but through it all we've got each others' backs. Fuck with one of us, and a truck full of our kinfolk will show up on your doorstep with gats. No joke.

So, in my dream, I'm my granddaughter. Let's call me M.

M's on the first floor of a mansion, in a room, watching reruns on TV with her cousins, siblings, and other family members. She has at least six siblings, and a couple of them are adopted. They all have the look of youths who have the world at their fingertips and are humble enough to not abuse their power. They are carefree and do not take their easy lifestyle light-heartedly. They are street smart but ultimately have enough intelligence to think for themselves and seek higher education. They are well-provided for financially and emotionally, and are compassionate towards others. They are (for the most part) idealistic liberals, but are not susceptible to middle-class guilt. They know better.

The Rubio clan is having a get-together at our mansion, and hundreds of people are coming in through the doors. The people are from all walks of life: they look of different races, different classes, etc. - but they have two things in common. 1) They all look very satisfied with their lives. 2) They are all related to M somehow. (We really do breed like rabbits!)

There's a reporter from a major TV network who wants to speak to someone in the clan, and M does an interview. She's telling the reporter about me, about my idealistic notion to make the world a better place through my family. She says that I went to the Philippines in my early twenties with a void in my life. There had always been something I was looking for, a key to my aspirations. I found that key in my family in the Philippines. They were the people that I could trust with anything, and I decided that for my betterment and the advancing of my entire clan - cousins twice-removed, great-grand-nieces, everyone - I would use my knowledge, wisdom, experience and connections to make things happen. While I started churning out books and other forms of media, I encouraged my family to find their interests and niches, M says to the reporter. It was in this way that businesses were started, ideas patented and sold, an empire begun. And that's how we started to build capital.

Little by little, different sectors were taken over by members of the Rubio clan, as well as other minorities. Fashion, medicine, law, publicity, oil, politics, art, computers, engineering, automobiles, publishing, movies, television - the diverse interests of family members were encouraged and supported so that everyone really did well. But unlike the paradigm of WASP-y wealthy families in America, we were able to expand our hold exponentially due to our sheer numbers and the close-knit culture from which we sprang. Along the way, we assisted like-minded individuals (most of them disadvantaged because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) around the world.

M talked about how she and her siblings frequent local shopping areas and malls despite the billions of dollars her family had accumulated. Once a year, everyone donated their ill-fitting clothes to the homeless, despite who the garment's designer might be. Gap and Old Navy clothes mixed with Roberto Cavalli and Gucci; none was more ubiquitous than the other, so that a healthy mix was brought to the less-fortunate (and the elitism attached to the garments was diminished). Millions of dollars were spent on after-school programs for inner-city youth, and job-training and placement centers in the areas in most need.

When the special on M and her family was finally aired, the reporter talked about how a new kind of wealth had been ushered in by my family. We were humanitarian and void of elitism. Some of us attended public school, while some attended private school. Some of us were CEOs while others of us ran blue-collar establishments and others yet had working-class day-jobs. Still, we were all a family, strong, loving, supportive, and loyal. We were showing America what it's like to stand together, make money, and still be caring, decent people. We were a model for the way people should be.

Needless to say, I woke up from my dream with a smile on my face. Disney's right: a dream is a wish your heart makes. But it's also a gamble.

My heart's all in.