Dreams are weird. For those who know me, really
know me, it's no surprise that I have an hours-long, colorful, noisy,
temperature-laden, and emotionally-full nighttime cinema going on in my head
every night. Honestly, it’s amazing that I don’t wake up more exhausted
than I was when I went to sleep. Oh, wait. That happens. Some of the time I
remember what the movie was about. Lots of times I don’t. Occasionally, the
dreams are so moving, or scary, or mind-bending, that I remember them forever.
Like the one in which I first met my daughter,
before she was even a twinkle, when she visited me as a two-year old, standing
in my lit hallway in the middle of the night, wearing her blue nightie with her
blonde tousled hair, and then turning to walk down the stairs. I didn’t
remember that movie until she was actually a two-year old, standing in the
exact same spot, wearing the exact same thing, with the exact same blonde
tousled hair.
Or the one in which I sit up in bed to see an
old-fashioned, white wicker baby pram rolling upside-down across my ceiling.
Or the one in which I wake up to find an Indian
warrior in full feather headdress standing at my bedside watching me sleep. I
could smell the charcoal fire and sweat, see the glisten and depth in his eyes,
feel his warmth, and I was unafraid.
Or the time I thought someone was crawling in my
bedroom window as a teenager. I was afraid.
Or the time I woke up screaming, only to be led
into the bathroom by my mom to get some water, and relive the entire dream that
involved pulling back the shower curtain to find her dead in the tub.
Or the one after my brother died when I knocked
and knocked and knocked on my best friend’s door, only to figure out I was at
the wrong house. When I turned around, I saw a neighbor, whom I have not had
contact with since our move away from Colorado, standing in the driveway
hugging Greg.
I used to dream all the time about rescuing
people or animals, being the first to arrive at car accidents, pulling kids out
of water, salvaging relationships. After my brother died, I began having dreams
where I needed to be rescued. Like the time I was hiding in closets and running
through an abandoned house with creaky floors, broken windows, and a carpet of
dead bugs and leaves, and then through a snow-covered and wooded yard, trying
to escape my brothers who were playing some sort of a game where I was the
prey, and they were both coming after me with a knife.
But, from as far back as I can remember (I
assume since high school), I’ve had one dream time and time again. I
am in high school (thus my assumption), it’s the first day, and I’ve lost my
schedule. I have no idea where to go, when to be there, or how to find my
locker. Instead of spending the day in class, making friends and learning about
fractions and government systems, I’m wandering hallways, running between
buildings as loose papers flew around the empty concrete pathways, and waiting
in and endless line at the counselor’s office. I never make it to class before
the bell rings. I had this one a lot, and consider it my recurring dream.
Tomorrow I start my final task in school before
student teaching commences next fall. I will be observing in classrooms for a
total of 60 hours, watching how the teacher interacts with the kids, evaluating
her classroom management techniques, and even teaching or helping to teach
lessons to the kids. Last night, I had my recurring dream, but it was
different. Is it still recurring if it's different?
This time I was a student teacher (go figure)
arriving for my first day. The school was spread over a large piece of land, as
was the school of my youth, incidentally. In fact, lockers were quite a
distance, requiring driving. I checked in with the classroom teacher I was to
be working with, and realized I’d left all of my materials in my ‘locker.’ I
started the long drive to the other building, only to get hopelessly lost,
having strange encounters with random strangers and family members, going in
and out of doors, peeking in windows, and never finding what I needed. When I
finally made it back to the classroom, without said materials, it was empty. It
was then that I remembered there was to be a ‘first-day potluck’ in another
building. But I hadn’t told the family, who had traveled with me to the unknown
location of this school and was waiting patiently in a hotel room. I tried and
tried to call, never reaching anyone, so I headed to the potluck with a sense
of mom-radar dread. As I hesitatingly mingled and tried to meet other members
of the staff without seeming like a worried drama queen, my pocket finally
buzzed. As soon as I heard Dave’s voice, I knew that the world was right, and
that everything would be okay. And then I woke up.