Talking animals.

I had a dream when I was about 4 years old that I could talk to a cow. Not just a quirky dream where I was just chatting with an animal, but I felt close and connected to the cow. We lived in a brick house on a big hill with a fair bit of land, at the bottom of the hill there was a huge fig tree, then a forest. I don't know who owned the cows on the land there, my parents were just renting. I liked that house because I had my 4th birthday there, and 4 is my favorite number. I remember that birthday well, I got a toy car track that was lime green, and my birthday cake came out with sparklers on it. That's why I can remember it so well; it was the first time I had seen sparklers, at least as far as I knew at that point, and I didn't know what was going on. I know now that my family probably loved the look on my face, like the Australia Day that just past. I was in Perth with my girlfriend's sister and her daughter, Jadah, who was 2. Jada had never seen fireworks before and the look on her face was priceless. I have loved fireworks all my life, but in that moment it wasn't about the fireworks, it was about Jada, and all the other little kids that were there seeing fireworks for the first time, and it was comforting that there were all these other parents and family etc feeling the same as me. Like when you get older and Christmas becomes less about the presents you get, and more about the presents you give, and keeping the Santa Clause dream alive for little kids because you were that young once. I love Santa!

The lane we lived on was called Flowers Road, no kidding, and it was a dirt road that wound around a hillside after it branched off a main road near a town called Newrybar. I used to walk up the dirt road kicking rocks after getting off the school bus. I could never quite kick rocks as far as my older brother, Sam. My sister Jana was a little bit scared of the old lady that lived along our road, or maybe it was me, not sure. One day we were doing fund-raisers for our primary school and she donated $2. No one was scared of her after that.

It was on that road that Magenta got hit by a car and squished on the road, and slightly eaten at by dingo's or something by the time we found her. She was one of our three cats we got out of a box with 'Free' written on it in a town nearby. Riff-Raff, Magenta, and Tallow. The first two named after The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the latter named after a surf beach that years later became one of my favorite breaks in the area. The whole family liked Rocky Horror, but me the most. I didn't know anything about it cause I was too young to take in dialect and understand what a transvestite was. I used to embarrass Jana and Sam in town because instead of running round in a Spiderman suit like you see kids do today, I ran around in a sparkly silver v-neck top that we had in our dress up box singing "I'm a sweet transvestite" from the movie. The shirt was itchy so I wish someone told me what transvestite meant a little sooner. I thought my Dad got a kick out of it 'cause he always had a huge grin - now I think he was half laughing, and half taking in his children. Kids don't care of what others think, they first need to learn through life what is publicly 'acceptable' or not, what a shame. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't have told me what a transvestite was just then either, innocence is too priceless.

After Magenta was killed, Tallow ran away and disappeared into the forest behind the fig tree. In the dream I had I was looking everywhere for him, through the stable, pig pens, and around the trampoline. You're probably painting a very 'farm' lifestyle, but it wasn't like that at all. Byron Bay is in a sub-tropical climate so everything is quite green, a lot of palms, figs, and banana's. It's found in the volcanic mountain ranges of the far North Coast of New South Wales, Australia. I lived about 16k's inland, where the mountains begin to get higher. Our house had a kind of hippy, laid-back feel to it. Overlooking forestry where the sun set over the mountains. I was too young to really appreciate that, and we moved by the time I was 5 to a place up the road that wasn't quite as nice, but more of my memories were crafted there so I liked it more.

I was getting worried in my dream because I still couldn't find the cat and I wanted to go home. Even though the cow was right by the back of our house, sitting at the top of the hill, I still couldn't seem to find home. I hate how dreams do that. last night I dreamt I was going for a surf after my friend said it was good, in typical dream form I was held back; I got on my bike but it needed fixing/fixed chain up/jumped on bike/realized I jumped on my friends bike/swapped with my friend for my bike back/went to ride off without my board/went to ride off without my fins/got a few meters then saw friends board on the grass/took his board back/rode to the surf/surf was good/realized I had my friends fins/got angry/woke up.

The cow was brown and laying by a fence and told me not to worry about it, I cheered up a little but still had some sniffles. I can't remember what she said exactly, but she was very reassuring and delicate about it all. I sat down against her belly and kept talking to her until I woke up. That's the earliest dream I can remember and I was upset that I couldn't go out and talk to all the cows, or any other animals. After that I always wanted a dream where I could talk to Riff-Raff, but it never happened.