Tag Archives: relationship dynamics

Wedding Ghosts and the Enigma of a Recurring Dream

Posted on by
Reply

A Ghost Wedding in the Future leads to healing long buried Grief from the Past

Recurring dreams are rare for me. When they do occur, however, they return over and over and over again. They distract me from my daily real-life responsibilities with a growing obsession with efforts to determine just what in the world do these wild dreams mean? What did they mean back then? What do they mean now? And do the meanings of one person’s dreams ever represent anything for any other person?

Had a dream back in February 2020 as the COVID-19 Pandemic was spreading around our planet that recurred so often the dream haunted me even while awake. The dream was unusually short in duration and didn’t peel off into a reel of others. So often one dream would roll into another and then into another, each one a different dream yet all seem interconnected and linked together like books in The Bible. Perhaps what felt most intriguing and somewhat disturbing was what and who were not in this odd dream such as current partners. The dream felt more realistic and less fantastical, and it also felt incredibly prophetic. To come true, however, the events within the dream would have to go against the grain of current, on-going, real-life relationships. As it turns out, this dream unleashed a torrent of long-buried pain and, ultimately, resolution and liberation. My subconscious had to jack hammer it into my awareness more than five years after I first experienced this dream.

Continue reading →

Paragliding off Tiger Mountain with John

Posted on by
Reply

Kristina & I go paragliding with our buddy John 

Kristina, my wife at the time, and I planned to join my old friend John to do what we see someone else like this paraglider doing here. From Poo Poo Point on West Tiger Mountain. Monday 20 August 2009.

John Kraske was an old buddy of mine from our long ago whitewater river running days. He’d helped me recover my lost and stolen kayak, a red Perception Dancer, popular at the time. We also studied licensed massage therapy in Seattle and eventually became master bodyworkers. We were close despite he was a bit older than me as we shared mutual interests in outdoor adventure, spirituality, and preventative health. At the same time we didn’t see each other all that much especially as we both tended to roam around and had very different schedules. Neither one of us were good at sitting still. I asked him to participate in my wedding ceremony to Kristina back in July, and he did so with quiet glee. John served as one of my groomsmen, or male attendants that Saturday the 11th of July. As a wedding present, he offered to take both Kristina and me paragliding.

John had his own small business based on the Oregon Coast at that time teaching students how to paraglide. He also took paying customers out in his tandem paraglider. He called his little company Ravens Dance Paragliding at the time. It is an expensive sport initially, as many such activities often are. Not only is the equipment costly and bulky, but the sport regulatory and safety licensing and certification process is expensive. He gifted us the experience for free. Kristina and I had never done anything up in the air like this, so we gladly accepted. We felt much gratitude and greatly appreciated his gift as it required much time, energy, and cost from him. After all, he had to drive back up into Washington from Oregon. John had a lot of fun, tho, with us. Having fun is a big value for him. So off we went.

What follows are a series of fotos taken by both Kristina and I that show some of the many steps it takes to prepare to launch a tandem paraglider. As this is written 15 years after the event, it’s also a snapshot in time, a slice of Americana, illustrating people having a good time even in the midst of the Great Recession. At that time, all three of us friends had endured unimaginable losses, as did so many other people we knew. Life goes on, tho, and we chose to fly.

John, picture left, my old whitewater kayaking buddy from the 1980s and 90s, instructing me what to do…and what not to do. At this time in our lives, my friend’s an active 65 years along, and I’m 50, merely halfway to 100. Feels somewhat strange to write these words and clean up old pictures salvaged from the fire some 15 years later.

First, however, we had to hike up to the top of Poo Poo Point on the short, steep Chirico Trail. It’s about 3.8 miles RT with some 1,760 feet of elevation gain. The first push up off from the flats is steep and well-designed. Here Kristina, only 41 years along in time, heads on up the trail. 

Continue reading →

Familymoon Trip to Maine, August 2009

Posted on by
Reply

Adventures of a Blended Family during one Summer in Maine

***Graphic heavy with 640 fotos***

1. Introduction

The Little Red Cottage where we stayed for most of our trip to Maine. This grand adventure was one of our most memorable trips ever. These fotos were lost for years after the 2010 house fire and recently recovered. A good many remain missing and probably lost forever. Life goes on anyway. I started composing this foto-essay for my family in August 2024, 15 years after those wonderful, halcyon summer days of August 2009. We all loved this little cabin. You can see the blue waters of the lake thru openings in the trees.

Crawford Pond, the huge lake the Little Red Cottage overlooks. The cabin sits back in the woods up on a ridge overlooking the water’s edge. Both cottage and pond weren’t too far from the little town of Union in Downeast Maine. In Maine and in much of New England and indeed the Northeast in general lakes are called ponds. Most other places including where I grew up in the South and later while living in the Northwest small lakes were called ponds and the big ones just lakes. We swam and paddled in beautiful, fun Crawford Pond daily. From Monday 17 August 2009.

Water’s Edge. Canoe of dreams. People didn’t worry about theft despite stories of rare, rogue hermits back in the woods who pilfered around for supplies.

Kate takes the leap!

Happy sisters! Morgan (now Dylan) & Talia grinning away at Acadia National Park, From Wednesday 19 August 2009.

These two former lovebirds, however, when together during those years were the reason this Familymoon Adventure happened. Kristina Katayama Bass & William Dudley Bass at Acadia National Park, Maine, on Wednesday the 19th of August 2009.

Continue reading →

Fire Alarms After Midnight

Posted on by
Reply

Couldn’t wake up & even dozed off sitting on the potty 

IMG_0524
“What’s going on here?”

Click on link above to watch short video from 2:03:23 in the morning.

Faithlyn, my wife, probably has a different memory altogether of what happened. The following, however, is what my sleepdrunk mind recalled the morning after.

Deep sleep is, for me, a rare and precious experience for it’s so difficult for me to fall asleep and stay asleep. Had gone to bed about a half hour after midnight. I was sleeping hard when the fire alarms went off. Earlier took one capsule of deep sleep herbs plus one capsule of ibuprofen for a headache with a tall glass of water.

See, I am not only a neurodivergent insomniac but also HOH, Hard of Hearing. My hearing loss is labeled moderate to profound, bilateral, originated from birth trauma some 65 years ago, and has become more severe over time. Many Hearing people are surprised to learn I don’t sleep with my hearing aids in. Oh, I’ve tried, and all the loud sounds of the night from baying dogs to vroom-vrooming cruisers would keep me up. Plus after wearing them all day long I need to get those devices out of my ears and off my head.

Faithlyn and I live in a new apartment complex in Shoreline just north of the Seattle city line. The complex is shaped like an enormous triangular battleship. Clearly I’ve seen too many science fiction movies. This is the first time the fire alarm had gone off in the middle of the frickin’ night. The fire alarms are so loud it even wakes me up, which I suppose is now good to know as we weren’t sure if the alarms would do so. My wife is even deafer than me, but she was up transfixed by some convoluted crime show on “NettlesFlicked.”

Groggy, I rolled over to sit on the edge of the bed. Confused by the loud sound. Must be time to go to work, I thought, but didn’t feel my pillow thumper go off. I reach out to turn around my clock to see the time: gosh, don’t remember what I saw except twas close to 2:00 in the morning. Damn. Not time to wake up for work. Felt even more confused. What is making all that racket? Just wanna fall back asleep. I was finally, finally sleeping hard!

My wife steps into the room and turns on the light. She gestures at me. Dazed by the lights, I look over at her thru squinted eyes, and feel even more confused. Can’t hear anything. She shouts at me something about a fire, a fire alarm, the fire alarms are going off,  and we need to go. I think she said all those things for her moving lips appeared blurry without me wearing my eyeglasses. We need to get out of here. Now! What? First I need to go pee. That big, tall glass of water is coming thru! Continue reading →

The Little Girl on the Floor

Posted on by
Reply

A little girl playing on the floor of the store melted my heart and opened my mind. In doing so she tilted the fabric of spacetime as one would water pour from a pitcher into a drinking glass. Doorways of mind and heart closed momentarily and yet holographically appeared as a line of portals between parallel universes. My timeline felt bifurcated. Both lines vanished into the future as quickly as turning the water tap in the kitchen sink on then off. All drains still lead to the same underground pipe. All was done inadvertently from her end, however, such was her power on those around her. She was one of the most adorable little toddlers I’ve ever been fortunate with whom to engage. This child was not only incredibly cute, but she also demonstrated a degree of presence unusual for any human being. Usually I’m one to shy away from the young children of others. This little girl with shaggy blonde hair, however, reeled me in with her playful curiosity, intense focus, and ability to seemingly anticipate adult commands.

Continue reading →

Big Dawg in the Parking Lot

Posted on by
Reply

An urban vignette

After I parked my old green minivan at the Greenwood Fred Meyer store about 21:50, a young couple with a pit bull bounded down the entry steps mad as Hell. They were yelling & arguing over whether or not their dog had taken a big poop. Made me forget for a wee bit why I drove all the way there after work to buy food & toiletries. Did the dog take a big doggie dump inside the grocery store? Next to all the food? Or not? Well, dayum!

People are something else. Humans are a mess. Life is messy, and people will choose to do what people do when they remain unaware they have choices. And Big Dawg in the parking lot? Big Dawg clearly didn’t give a shit and wasn’t about to shit for the asshole yanking back on its leash as they both bounded down the concrete steps from the store into the parking lot ahead of the woman yobbling out behind them. Dayum! Oh, shit, are these too many damns and shits for thee? Read on, thy fair readers. Tis merely a vignette!

Continue reading →

Cape Disappointment Happy Blues 2007

Posted on by
Reply

Snapshots in time of a family in the wind

Early January 2007

Cliffs at this edge of ocean were forbidding, terrifying, and hypnotic in their power. We felt mesmerized as we watched massive waves roll in thru wind and rain to explode upon the rocks below and roar up cliffs into the sky. The Columbia River surged down from the Canadian and American bowels of Cascadia into the vast Pacific Ocean. River and sea currents smashed together to form one of the most chaotic, dangerous, and dynamic river deltas in the world, the Columbia River Bar. Kristina’s Dad goes out fishing in it all the time.

Bass-Katayama Family near cliff’s edge at Cape Disappointment, Washington. L2R: front row: Talia & Kate; middle: Kristina & Morgan (now Dylan); rear: William. Pics recovered from Kristina’s old camera fone. Tuesday 2 January 2007.

Continue reading →

Exploring Spider Meadows, 2006 & 2007

Posted on by
Reply

Two journeys deep into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, one alone with my lover Kristina in August of 2006, and together with our youngest in August of 2007. One was an erotic, lust-drenched, sweaty exploration of high alpine meadows & a rocky mountain pass above a dying glacier. The other was a family misadventure awry with unexpected misery, voracious, nose-stuffing flies, & insane giggles.

*This is unfinished, a work in progress. Most of the pics & associated journals were lost in a house fire. This help builds what remains. Thanks for being here. Enjoy!*

William & Kristina in Spider Meadows. Timed selfie shot from the top of a rock left in the meadows from some long ago avalanche. Sunday 13 August 2006.

Spider Meadows sprawls deep within the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Phelps Creek rushes down the middle of wild copses of dark woods and open mountain meadows to plunge down a gorge of its own making to eventually flow into the Chiwawa River. Glacier Peak is one of Washington State’s still-live stratovolcanoes and dominates as the central giant of the USFS Wilderness Area named after it’s Anglo-American name. The Native American tribes referred to it as DaKobed, among other names. The volcano rises as a giant pyramid cone at the head of the Dakobed Range to a lofty 10,541 feet or 3,213 meters, but one is unable to see it from Spiders Meadows. The meadows is edged by a ring of 8-9,000+ foot-high peaks. During August of 2006 I ventured into the wilderness into what became an alpine celebration of hot, lusty, forest love. A year later, however, proved harrowing and disorienting. Two very different trips! Such is the joyful, tearful, giggly ass messiness of Life!
Continue reading →