It’s  wonderfully weird, I think, that I continue to have dreams about Leonard Nimoy about three times a year.

 

I don’t even dream about De (or anyone else, for that matter) that often.  (I’ve had three dreams about Joe Biden in ten years, too. Fatherly type dreams. I resonate with his spirit a lot, too. And he’s a stutterer who overcame the tendency, as I am.)

 

I wonder if these are “missed opportunity” dreams?

 

I MET LEONARD NIMOY BRIEFLY ON TWO DIFFERENT OCCASIONS

 

I met Leonard Nimoy (and by met, I mean I was situated in a swarm of his fans; I did not actually spend more than a minute of “quality time” with him) on two different occasions. A friend and I met his airplane at Sea-Tac during the time the Original Star Trek was being produced, at which time I gave him a string of love beads, which he wore during a subsequent TV interview that took place moments later), for which he said, “Thank you!”

 

I met him again briefly about three years later as he was arriving at a TV studio to do a Variety Club telethon during the years he was portraying Paris in the Mission: Impossible series. At that time,  few photos of him and me together were taken by someone who has since passed away and I asked for copies.

 

 

My friend and I stopped him as he went into the TV studio and asked him to listen to a “Mission:Impossible” inspired request that we had: for him to see if he could get us inside to watch the telethon from inside the studio.  Although it was very cold outside and my tape recorder was half frozen and croaked out his Mission, he listened to it patiently, smiling, and then responded, “I wish I could, but I don’t run the show, so unfortunately I can’t.”   (Well, as Carolyn Kelley told me so many times in later years, “If you don’task, you don’t get!” Sometimes even when you do ask, you don’t get, but you end up no worse the wear for having asked. At least we had those brief moments with him before he disappeared inside!)

 

Oh!  And I also yelled at him once during the same event!

 

My friend and I were parked along the curb when the car delivering Leonard to the studio pulled up, and I noticed that the lights on their vehicle didn’t shut off when the driver and he got out and headed up the steps, so, thinking I’d save them a dead battery, I leaped out of my driver’s seat and yelled, “Leonard!’  He stopped ascending the stairs and turned in my direction.  I called out, “You left your lights on!”

 

He turned to his driver, who said something to him, and then he turned back to me and gave me a thumbs up and a wave, and they kept going.  About 30 seconds later, the lights in the vehicle they had arrived in turned off. It was then that I realized they had one of the newer cars that automatically shut off the lights after a minute or so.  I felt like a dork, but had the best of intentions.  And I’m sure Leonard took it that way, too.

 

I had already met DeForest Kelley by the time I met Leonard the first time

 

I met De in May 1968 and you know how that meeting went, and how it evolved into a decades’-long association and eventual friendship if you’ve read my book or heard any interviews with me. From the instant I met De, I was entranced.

 

I expected something similar when I met Leonard. (How foolish was that?!They were two different individuals!) Where De was immediately relational and felt almost like family (as far as treating me like a beloved child or niece or nephew), Leonard was more business-like and distant.  He wasn’t unfriendly in the least; he was just very busy and had places to go right away (an interview and a studio), so I understood the brevity of his interactions.  Even so, they were less satisfying.  I didn’t feel a psychic or emotional connection.  (And I was a huge Spock and McCoy/Kelley/Nimoy fan, so the vibes I gave off with both were probably very similar.)

 

After meeting De and Leonard, I gravitated more toward De and McCoy

 

I still adored and admired Spock/Nimoy (and contributed to Nimoy’s official fan club publications, as well: I did a couple covers for the LNAF and wrote reports about my brief encounters with Leonard) and often wrote about Spock (and portrayed him) in high school because his alien-ness resonated with the alienness I felt as a teenager.  But my heart belonged most fervently to De simply because he had responded so beautifully to my intial encounter with him — and because he continued to engage. He even got my first article published in a New York Magazine!

 

 

But my heart never stopped loving/liking/admiring Nimoy 

 

In fact, when Leonard came to Seattle to portray Theo Van Gogh in his one man show about Vincent van Gogh’s brother, I registered to go see it. But on the night it happened, I was nursemaiding a sick cougar at Cougar Mountain Sanctuary, so I sent a message up saying that although I was devastated at having to miss his performance, I had a life-and-death situation with a cougar and I had to make the choice…

 

Not long after, I got a signed program from the performance. Leonard said I had made the right choice! I’ve been looking all over for that piece of history, and haven’t run across it yet, but now I’m pretty sure I know where it is (since I’ve looked everywhere else!) and if I run it down in the next few days, I will scan it and post it here.

 

ARE ALL THESE NEAR MISSES AND PERFUNTORY MEETINGS WHY NIMOY IS STILL INHABITING MY DREAMS?

 

The only thing I can  come up with for experiencing Nimoy dreams is that I feel I missed an opportunity. The dreams are all lovely. In them, we’re conversing like old friends.  One time, though, he thanked me for taking such good care of De before he passed away!

 

In the dreams, Leonard appears to be in his mid-40’s and I’m not much younger. That’s a perk!

 

Anyway, I had another dream about him just two nights ago, but I used yesterday’s blog post to talk about Patches’ vet visit, so I’m catching you up now.

 

I do miss dreaming about De

 

I haven’t had a memorable dream about De (that I can recall the details of) in a couple years now.

 

I want a visit, De!

DO YOU HEAR ME?!

 

Usually when I do dream about De, I am at some convention and trying to get to him to connect, but I keep getting thwarted.

 

I know where THAT’S coming from: it’s hard to love someone for so many years and then not be able to re-connect with them reliably again after they pass away.