I am sitting on a bus which is pulling into the bus station in Boston. Under my feet is a large but empty bright green duffel bag. I join the line of passengers exiting the bus; the door is on the left rather than on the right side of the bus. Once out of the bus I realize that I do not have the green duffel bag. There is something green embedded in the dirty snow bank in front of me but it appears to be a tarp and not my duffel bag.

I walk into the ticket office to inquire about how I might be able to get out to Marblehead from Boston. The ticket agent tells me that there is no bus to Marblehead. I could take the subway out to Wonderland but there would be no way to get from there to Marblehead either. Giving up on the possibility of getting home to Marblehead, I ask about my duffel bag. The agent tells me that the bus will probably be parked in the garage out back and gives me permission to go back there and check.

Like the ticket office, the garage is gray and dirty. It is also very large with room to park the buses on one side and various pieces of equipment and ramps and a few people working on the other side. I walk up to a woman who is directing one of the buses as it backs into a parking place, but for some reason I do not attempt to board the bus to look for my duffel bag even though I think she would permit me to do so. Heading to the other side of the garage, I walk up over a ramp and down again to where the floor is covered with a thin brown layer of grease and water. Another woman suggests that I wear shoes because of the grease and I repeat "Ooze and gooze." Returning to the ramp I follow it towards the far end of the garage where there is some more equipment.

A central theme of the dream appears to be loss. The empty duffel bag which I lost, in its potential for containing items of value, suggests that what I lost was opportunity rather than actual substance. The loss is associated with Boston and Marblehead, where I lived during high school. That in the dream I am unable to get to Marblehead suggests that those opportunities, perhaps available to me during high school, are available no longer. I make some effort to recover them but give up.

Another possibility is that the bright green duffel bag represents an ideal or ideals which I held when I was younger; reality is more like the dirty snowbank and the green tarp buried in it. What might those ideals be? Perhaps the possibilities of perfection - of character, of achievement, of relationship with a partner - which I entertained in the past but but somehow found to be not representative of real life. Real life turned out somewhat different than I expected, like exiting the bus through a door on the left rather than on the right. Real life eventually demanded the relinquishing of ideals, a genuine loss but not of anything of real value.
Real life in the dream is a gritty affair involving ramps and equipment and soiled feet. The ramp and equipment strongly suggest the impact of ALS on my daily life; at the time of the dream Darchelle and I were having a ramp built so I could get in and out of the house and were acquiring equipment - shower chair, maybe a power wheelchair - to accommodate my increasing disability.

Perfection. It once seemed so possible! There was a time I believed that with my abilities I could excel at any career I chose. With God's help I could develop a perfect character. With sufficient courage and discrimination I could find a perfect partner with whom to enjoy a perfect relationship. At some point, and sadly not that long ago, I finally realized that the perfection I sought was an illusion. Oddly enough, having relinquished the possibility of perfection, I have discovered and found that I possess something that is pretty damn close. Within the constraints of real life, I delight in my relationship with someone who is pretty close to perfect; I have achieved considerable success in my chosen endeavors and as to my character, it seems to be mostly adequate for the uses to which it is put.