Last night, there were three animals in my dream living room. A dog, a dog and a tiny alpaca. Maybe a few ocean waves and a divorce.
Today, Olivia the therapist asked me to take each dream-character and name which part of myself they might represent. I improvised (um dog #1 is my anger) because I still don’t get how others can be parts of me.
— April, 2021
So in the dream, the boy is my height with well defined arms. He’s walking with me along a cliff. And the cliff is overlooking some salty sea. And his grandma has made us a pie. The pie isn’t around, I just know she has. And I’m wearing clogs. And it’s here, at the clogs bit, that you can tell I’m a lesbian. Before the clogs it was hard to tell, I’ll grant you that.
— June, 2021
I meet the circus boy two weeks after I move to Portland. At this point, I’m still holding onto the assumption that Bread and Puppet’s puppets are made of bread. The troupe tumbles out of the bus in poofy shirts and white pants. Barefoot, in a good way.
When the puppets peace out and the wind picks up, my class is ready to leave. I tell them I’ll meet them at the bar they’re headed to. First, I’ve got a dream to settle.
Circus boy is holding a hat for donations. I say hey you. Two years ago, I had a dream ft. a circus tent on a Scottish highland. After that, I had constant sea AND boy dreams. You, circus boy on this hill in front of the sea, are a bit too much for me to handle right now.
Instead, I’m telling him about Salt, my documentary school. How we’re learning to collect stories ethically. I stop talking. He says he has time, that he’d like to hear more. He’s got a good voice and bad boy curls on his head. Interviewing is good. Flirting is bad. Interviewing is real. Flirting is dream.
I take a breath. Are there any team bonding exercises the group has to do before going on tour? Are there cliques in the bus? What are the sleeping arrangements like on the road? Do audience faces blend together?
Later, at the bar with my Salt class, I refresh Facebook dot com. Too soon for circus boy to accept my friend request. It’s that he’s my interview subject you know, so. Just trying to secure a sweet lead.
— September, 2021
As a kid, my when-I-grow-up dream is to eat a cake whole. It’s not that I’m against sharing. It’s that once I’m an adult, I’ll have the option not to and I intend on taking that option. Maman tells me that dreams don’t always stand the test of time.
Then, I’m 24 and my friend’s partner who is also my friend bakes me a birthday cake. It’s orangey-red and though I want to eat it whole, I don’t.
After the party, I can’t store the leftover cake in the fridge because it’s stopped working. I Google “fridge as balcony montreal”. And then “balcony as fridge montreal”. I can’t afford to pay eco depot to pick it up so I just stare at my melting fridge and a party guest’s magnet poem:
WHERE DREAMING DID IT ALL LIKE MUSIC.
— December, 2022
Circus boy would turn out to be Kyle, a full-time friend, part-time interviewee and veery part-time lover. Kyle is a lot more human bean than dream! It amazes me how you can use writing to hone in on a particular moment or feeling (cool) and how you can freeze it in its narrowness (less cool).
This week Gaby served Hannah and I these peppers where apparently 1 out of 10 of them are super spicy and the rest aren’t. Gaby roasted them and they melted off the stem into my mouth. I started reading a book Sarah lent me about a planet where gender is irrelevant.
I also interviewed for a job at a spirituality podcast and experienced a potent December brand of solitude / sadness (in a non devastating way, see below).
— zo