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 Dalai Mama Weekly BlogCatherine Newman chronicles life parenting Ben, 8, and Birdy, 5
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July 21, 2008
Interpretation of Dreams
 Friends are here for dinner, and over an insanely good, friendly and messy fondue — a recipe I'm developing for wondertime, of course — I'm telling them about my dream from the night before: how I was on an airplane, and issued the regulation pair of long foam underwear (picture bike shorts made of fiberglass insulation), only I put them on backwards by mistake, and had to spend the entire trip trying to conceal the giant butt shape puffing out of my lap. These efforts at concealment were interrupted only by an interlude in airplane bathroom, where I dropped my glasses on the floor, and had to reach into a puddle to retrieve the broken pieces of glass. I was up to my wrist in airplane bathroom puddle when I woke up. It reminded me of another dream I had recently — the one where I'd taken Birdy into a gas station rest room, the kind with obscene graffiti ("Wait, Mama — is that picture of a long, long mushroom?") and wadded white volcanoes of toilet paper all over the floor, and empty soap and paper towel dispensers, and a single stall that looked like an exhibit from an archaeological museum of feces smears. And as Birdy bent way down to pull up her pants, she actually dunked the ends of her hair — you guessed it — right into the toilet. Oh, wait — that was no dream. That was our road trip last week. Kill me. But back to the upholstery-undies nightmare: what was it about, besides the obvious and common fear of one's abdomen being mistaken for a giant foam heinie? Screwing stuff up and being humiliated, our friend Lydia supposes. Which makes it not entirely different from my recurring apocalypse dream — an extreme version of global warming, where it's a thousand degrees and we're being evacuated (to the moon?), and on our way to the harbor, where the boats are lined up, I step in a giant pile of dog doo. And then my children stand around anxiously, saying, "Mama, Mama, all the boats are leaving!" And it's true, I can see them pulling away from the shore, only the poop is embedded in the tread of my sneaker, and I'm just trying to wipe it on the grass so everyone on the boat won't be like, "Ew, do you smell that?” as the world comes broilingly to an end. Now Lydia and I are trading our classic anxiety dreams. The dreams where you smile in the mirror and all your teeth drop out like you're a cartoon cat hit in the mouth with a wrecking ball, the dreams where you go to push your hair behind your ears only the whole lot of it pushes right off your head like a wig, the dreams where you go to turn in your final exam only the test booklet has turned into a slice of pizza and you eat it right in front of the proctor, the dreams where you're being chased. "I love those dreams," Lydia says. "Right when I'm almost caught, I always remember that I can fly!" Don't you love the way close friends can be so different from you? "That's funny," I say. "Right when I'm almost caught, I always remember that I have no legs, and I have to keep running away on my stump torso." This is the sister dream to another classic, where I'm being chased and I stop to call 911 from a pay phone, only I have stump-fingers, and can't wedge them into the dialy holes. "I love flying dreams," Lydia sighs, in response to her own loveliness as a person, and I sigh along with her. "Well that reminds me of my dream," Birdy interjects. "I dreamed I was zooming down a big ginormous slide? And I was really, really worried because I hadn't told Daddy to catch me? But then he was there anyways and he caught me." This is so beautiful that I cry a little bit of fondue out my nose. "Oh wait," Birdy adds. "I had another dream? That I was in a boat on the sea all alone? But suddenly Daddy was there and it was okay." I swear I have never been more in love with Michael than at this moment: he is the person who would catch you, who would be there before you even knew you needed him (as long as you didn't need him to notice that you had gotten bangs for the first time in 18 years). Little Miss Oedipus isn't satisfied, though. "It's funny," she adds, utterly guileless. "In my dreams? Daddy's always there! And me. But Mama, you aren't." This is the girl who likes to put my commitment ring on her finger and singsong, "I'm part-ners with Da-ddy! Ha ha ha ha ha ha" to the tune of nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. "That is funny" I say, and she screws up her face in exaggerated bafflement and says, "I know." But by now I have eaten way too much fondue — and when I look down? Well. I'm not saying it's a total foam fanny-belly situation. But it's as close as waking life can get. Editor's Note:   
Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir,
Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide. Post a comment
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