You should know that I've had this conversation more than once.
"My grandmother interpreted dreams."
"WHOA, that's so -"
"Not for a living."
"Oh."
"She was a seamstress. Dream interpretation was just a hobby."
She did it over breakfast.
***
About my grandmother.
My mom's mother, rather. I've never been able to refer to her as "Grandma," probably because she died before I was born, so we never met. My mom says that we'd have gotten along swimmingly. She says this a lot.
Every time, I ask: "Why?"
And every time, my mom responds: "She hated wearing shoes."
Which isn't to say that I hate wearing shoes, although that, too, is true.
But it's the principle of the thing.
She ensured that my mom had a new, hand-sewn dress for every school dance.
(It would be waiting for her on the mantle [or was it the kitchen table?] the day of.)
She smoked like her life depended on it.
So, as is often the case with the things on which our lives depend, it killed her.
She indulged in sweets, even when (especially when) she became diabetic.
Some might say that she did herself in.
(Maybe that's why we'd have gotten along swimmingly.)
(But here's the difference: she didn't take care of herself, but she, at least, made sure that she enjoyed every minute of it.)
***
The knack for dream interpretation skipped a generation. I enjoy the practice, but my mom abstains from it. I got her a book on the subject. It was a birthday gift. I usually put a lot of thought into gifts. I usually start making them weeks in advance. But this year, for whatever reason, for what-every reason, I had to resort to giving her a last minute find of a petite (like my mother), unassuming (unlike my mother) volume on the significance of various symbols in dreams.
It felt like such a cop-out.
It felt like the way that most people give gifts.
"Here, let me show you how much I pretend to care about you and how well I pretend to know you by exploiting the one tidbit of information about your life that I remember, and we never have to talk about how I don't know anything else about you, okay?"
I was certain that she'd see right through it, that she'd wonder where the handmade flipbook or the sculpture or the short story about her was.
But she didn't.
She loved it.
"You remembered," she said.
Was she tearing up?
Oh my God, she was tearing up.
"Remembered what?" I asked.
But she didn't have to answer. So she didn't.
This isn't the first time that we've talked about my mom's birthday.
But it's different, isn't it?
***
Last night's dream involved an award-winning dissertation (the product of my mind [by that, I mean that I wrote it, but even if I hadn't written it, even if it was, perhaps, published by an arch-nemesis of mine, it would still technically be the product of my mind, right, because it was my dream, right?]) about the romanticization of cannibalism. I don't remember it in much detail, but I remember that it was a bang-up piece of work. I wish that I could recreate it now. But why bother? It's like dreaming that you can fly, and then trying to fly the next day, and then, inevitably, failing. Flying and writing a near-perfect 250-plus page paper are pretty much the same, on the scale of impossibility, even when you've seen that you're capable of such things in dreams.
Especially when you've seen that you're capable of such things in dreams.
Additional, potentially significant dream elements:
- A circus train filled with bales of hay.
- A funeral.
- Mountains made of sugar.
***
My mom lost a bracelet a few days back.
She lost it somewhere in a town that's a handful of towns away from ours.
(From hers? I mean, because, I don't really live there anymore. I don't really live there much anymore, I mean. I don't do much living there anymore, I mean.)
She told me about it, over the phone, as I was reading some Buddhist literature.
As such, all I could hear in her voice was "Attachment! Attachment!"
"I wouldn't mind, but it's [here, she specified which bracelet it was, which isn't all that relevant to you, I suppose. Then again, is any of this relevant to you? Probably not.]"
Call me crazy, mom, but I'm pretty sure that you would have minded anyway, regardless.
"I'm sure you'll find it," I said half-heartedly, distracted by words like bodhicitta and samsara.
"Do you really think so?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know. I've looked everywhere."
"Have you looked to nature?" (That was me being an asshole.)
"Very funny, Katie."
"..."
"...am I on speaker phone?"
"..."
A few hours later, my mom called again.
"I found my bracelet!"
"What?"
"I found it!"
"Where was it?" I asked, fully expecting it to have been in her handbag, or her pocket, or the car this whole time.
"It was in a pile of leaves in the town park!"
"...what?"
"Thanks for the inspiration, Katie. Thank you so much."
"You're...welcome."
Look to nature.
Jesus Christ.
I'm a fool.
I'm a scoundrel.
I'm the luckiest person you know.
Amen.
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