Tattoo Dream
This morning's dream
I went to get my tattoo, and found the tattoo artist at his studio-home, an upstairs apartment in an old house. Looking through the windows I saw tree branches and other houses in the summer outdoors. He showed me around; in an alcove with at window at the end were shelves holding his wire sculptures, animals about four inches high, and driftwood. I think I was explaining how I wanted my tattoo to look, but I also said, "My mother was an artist," and told him about her watercolor painting, feeling as if watercolor were the sign of a trifling artist, but he didn't show any sign of thinking so.
Then I was showing up at the first performance of a play I was in. The whole play was done lying in a bed, with rumpled quilts all around us. I had two co-actors, a young man and an older man, who was also the director and had arranged the performance. As I settled against the pillows, I realized that I hadn't memorized, or even carefully read, the script, so I said to the older guy, "I don't have a script; can you give me one?" I thought I might have time to read through it quickly and then I'd have to read my part for the performance. Interestingly, I didn't feel alarmed at being in a play I hadn't rehearsed for, and I was only mildly bothered/ashamed by admitting it and having to read my part from the script. The man handed me one of those rental scripts with the colored covers, and I turned the cover back, being gentle so it wouldn't get worn around the staples and come loose.
This whole dream had a feeling of lively peace and interestedness in it. Interested has been one of my favorite feelings since childhood. It was rare in my childhood because I so often - in retrospect, it seems most of the time - felt afraid, embarrassed, ashamed, self-conscious, and dreading, or relieved and exhausted. And because of that I missed being curious and engaged; there was always a big ME, a big, embarrassing, awkward ME, standing between myself and the world. I so enjoy my children's competencies and knowledge because I missed so much being preoccupied with shame at myself; I never acted in a play, I never played an instrument, I never competed or initiated anything in public. I can barely do math because I found my difficulty with it so anxious that I didn't ask for help, and all the things I should have learned in school (except for reading and writing, which came naturally) were insecurely seated in my worried, ashamed, preoccupied mind, and were lost.
That is why this dream was so lovely; I didn't know my lines, but I didn't feel bad about it (and of course, I've had the anxious don't-know-my-lines-and-here's-the-performance dream plenty of times). The artist-man in the upstairs apartment? That was me, my animus, and we were acknowledging how much a part of me my mother is - not to denigrate her for being so weak, as I always did, but to see how valuable her dreaming, artistic self was to me.
ETA: And then I went to church, where the subject was Memorial Day and how we remember people we have lost, so I see that this dream was a Memorial Day dream.
I went to get my tattoo, and found the tattoo artist at his studio-home, an upstairs apartment in an old house. Looking through the windows I saw tree branches and other houses in the summer outdoors. He showed me around; in an alcove with at window at the end were shelves holding his wire sculptures, animals about four inches high, and driftwood. I think I was explaining how I wanted my tattoo to look, but I also said, "My mother was an artist," and told him about her watercolor painting, feeling as if watercolor were the sign of a trifling artist, but he didn't show any sign of thinking so.
Then I was showing up at the first performance of a play I was in. The whole play was done lying in a bed, with rumpled quilts all around us. I had two co-actors, a young man and an older man, who was also the director and had arranged the performance. As I settled against the pillows, I realized that I hadn't memorized, or even carefully read, the script, so I said to the older guy, "I don't have a script; can you give me one?" I thought I might have time to read through it quickly and then I'd have to read my part for the performance. Interestingly, I didn't feel alarmed at being in a play I hadn't rehearsed for, and I was only mildly bothered/ashamed by admitting it and having to read my part from the script. The man handed me one of those rental scripts with the colored covers, and I turned the cover back, being gentle so it wouldn't get worn around the staples and come loose.
This whole dream had a feeling of lively peace and interestedness in it. Interested has been one of my favorite feelings since childhood. It was rare in my childhood because I so often - in retrospect, it seems most of the time - felt afraid, embarrassed, ashamed, self-conscious, and dreading, or relieved and exhausted. And because of that I missed being curious and engaged; there was always a big ME, a big, embarrassing, awkward ME, standing between myself and the world. I so enjoy my children's competencies and knowledge because I missed so much being preoccupied with shame at myself; I never acted in a play, I never played an instrument, I never competed or initiated anything in public. I can barely do math because I found my difficulty with it so anxious that I didn't ask for help, and all the things I should have learned in school (except for reading and writing, which came naturally) were insecurely seated in my worried, ashamed, preoccupied mind, and were lost.
That is why this dream was so lovely; I didn't know my lines, but I didn't feel bad about it (and of course, I've had the anxious don't-know-my-lines-and-here's-the-performance dream plenty of times). The artist-man in the upstairs apartment? That was me, my animus, and we were acknowledging how much a part of me my mother is - not to denigrate her for being so weak, as I always did, but to see how valuable her dreaming, artistic self was to me.
ETA: And then I went to church, where the subject was Memorial Day and how we remember people we have lost, so I see that this dream was a Memorial Day dream.