When I met you in the restaurant
You could tell I was no debutante
You asked me what’s my pleasure
A movie or a measure?
I’ll have a cup of tea and tell you of my dreaming
Dreaming is free
I don’t want to live on charity
Pleasure’s real or is it fantasy?
Reel to reel is living rarity
People stop and stare at me We just walk on by – we just keep on dreaming
Feet feet, walking a two mile
Meet meet, meet me at the turnstile
I never met him, I’ll never forget him

Dream dream, even for a little while
Dream dream, filling up an idle hour
Fade away, radiate

I sit by and watch the river flow
I sit by and watch the traffic go
Imagine something of your very own
Something you can have and hold

I’d build a road in gold just to have some dreaming
Dreaming is free
Dreaming
Dreaming is free
Dreaming
Dreaming is free

I have this recurring dream in which my purse is stolen and I am chasing the party responsible to retrieve it. Well, this is sort of what happens. In the early days of this dream, the purse is just lost and I spend what feels like hours looking all over places that feel like places I know and yet they look completely different.

Like university.

I wander the streets and buildings of what is supposed to be Iowa City but isn’t and yet I think it is – and isn’t – at the same time.

I have also wandered a representative of the middle school I worked at the longest too.

But lately the dream has evolved to the point where I haven’t misplaced the purse but it has been stolen and I chase the thief through a mall. A funhouse version of a mall that actually crops up as a dream setting a lot. (I think sometimes I recycle sets but have no idea why.)

I am worried in the dream because all my credit cards and money and identification is in my purse. Why would I carry all that, you might ask. Because I have. Moving up here I had to keep all the important documents on me to ensure nothing got misplaced or left behind in a hotel. Any trip we take across the border requires a multitude of documents so we can get back in as we await finalization of our residency. Documents loom large in my life.

But money and credit cards?

I’ll get back to that.

So I finally have the woman who has my purse within my sights and she knows I am close on her heels. The bag is a dark leather with a longer shoulder strap and is floppy. You know, the kind that only stands upright because it is crammed with crap. Usually junk that belongs to everyone but the owner of the bag. That is the way of motherhood.

I grab the women by the shoulder and spin her around. She is shorter than I am. Blond short hair, the kind that kicks up in curls at the nape of the neck and at the ears. It looks frosted actually. I don’t recognize her. I wrench the bag from her shoulder and she fights to keep it, but I easily take it from her and knock her down.

I am so angry with this person and I just start to whale on her.

She rolls around, protesting that she needs the things in the purse but I don’t.

I don’t know what she is talking about because everything in the bag is mine.

I grab a hand full of her upper arm. She is extremely overweight. I pinch and twist it. She howls. Still insisting that I don’t need the purse.

That’s when a man snatches it up from the ground where it is laying and runs off with it.

That’s where I woke up.

Aside from the ever annoying spider dream (I spend a lot of time fending off noxious critters – usually big furry spiders), this purse dream is the most consistent in my rotation. I dream in color. There is often a soundtrack and I usually am at least partially – if not fully – aware that I am dreaming. Sometimes I am even a character and a spectator. It never seems odd.

I have told Rob about the dreams and mentioned the purse one with the new details. He wondered what I thought it meant and I really hadn’t any clue.

However, thinking about it for a few days I came to a few conclusions.

The purse is my identity and my baggage. That is obvious. The fat woman is my body image troubles which I clearly need to let go of. The fact that she told me I don’t need the “baggage” or the “identity” makes sense as I am not even the person I was a year ago let alone the woman I was prior to that.

The money and credit cards?

I am putting too much emphasis on the pay off end of my writing. I shouldn’t be worrying about that. Financially we are fine and I am putting too much pressure on myself and probably stifling my muse in the process.

So let’s see if the dream recurs now, shall we?