Wednesday, August 25, 2010

NO PUNCH


I had the sweetest, most charming e-mail from my friend Keetha at writekudzu this week. I'd enjoyed her blogging about plans for her wedding last year---all the preparations, and then the actual day, with all its lovely Southern traditions and wonderful food and decor. It was a beautiful occasion, and I felt as if I'd been there.
And though we’ve never met, perhaps so did Keetha:


Hi Rachel,
I hope you don't find this creepy but I had a dream the night before last that you were in! I dreamed I was getting ready for my wedding (which was last May!). It was the wedding day when I remembered I hadn't ordered any flowers for the wedding. None! No bouquets, no arrangements, not even for a bit of tulle on the railing outside. My mother was *not* happy with me atall. Then I saw you there and I said, "Oh, Rachel, yay!" I told my mother, "Look, there's Rachel. I bet she can help."


While planning the wedding I had a number of dreams about forgetting to get in touch with a florist, or a cake baker, and remembering it on the wedding day. I haven't had one of those in a while, and this is the first one I've had with you in it. :-)


In my dream, I told my mother that I kept dreaming about doing this very thing - forgetting to order flowers. I was almost in tears because I wanted, if nothing else, THAT WHITE TULLE on the black wrought iron railing outside.
How funny.




Just had to share that bit with you!


All my best,

Keetha


Oh, Sweetpea!!! What an honor!!


And I'm sure I was svelte and gorgeous, looking no-older-than-thirty-six, with sweepy-long eyelashes and shining auburn hair. (That's who I am in MY dreams).


Your wedding was simply charming, and I remember it so well---your words and pictures took us ALL there, as you so-graciously made us all welcome. I still think of that enormous sideboard with all the lovely strawberries and cheese straws, and that table with the wonderful traditionally-Southern repast.You were both absolutely glowing---the way you were looking at each other, and the way his face was all lit up with the marvel of you---it just shone through the photos.


I've always heard that when you've been to college, you will occasionally have a dream of having never attended one particular class you've signed up for---you just never did go, never got a book, never took a note, and NOW it's exam time, and you're sunk. It's something about that first real responsibility for yourself dawning, I think, after all those years under your parents' roof.


And yours was the responsibility for all the facets of your wedding---even the longing for the tulle STILL made it one of the least needfuls for the wedding---even with NO flowers, folks just would have thought "how elegantly simple and graceful" or some other pleasant thought (no Mrs. Elton with her "shocking lack of satin" remarks). So even in your dreams, you had everything really important covered.


I, however, dream of No Punch. I'm perfectly composed; the work is done, the cake and food are glorious, my staff stands lined up or busy in the kitchen, neatly uniformed, with every spoon and every rosebud in place. The car doors are slamming, the crowd is heard laughing and talking merrily in the vestibule of the Club, and THERE'S NO PUNCH. Or tea or wine or champagne or ANY kind of beverage, because I didn't bring any.



I don't know if they didn't order it and I neglected to mention it, or if I left it at home in the big fridge (thirty or two hundred miles away) or if I just forgot to make a single drop. So what does that tell you? Wonder what a psychiatrist would make of that one . . .
Anybody else have a recurring dream which means nothing, but kinda does?








6 comments:

  1. I have the recurring dream that I leave a store and my car is nowhere to be found, hence I try to call on my cell phone and can't find the right numbers. (I interpret that as I've lost my marbles and desperately seeking same.) When I worked in a university library years ago (in the days of card catalogs) I often had nightmares that someone dumped the entire contents higgledy-piggledy on the floor.

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  2. Rachel, have you been in my head? That never going to class dream is exactly the one I have and still do! AND, I have one where I can not find the right room. I keep getting lost and miss the class. AND, the other one I have alot (now don't think this gross, you asked...I'll try to be delicate) is that my 'monthly visitor' has arrived and I am out somewhere and not prepared. And, I had a hysterectomy 25 years ago!
    That wasn't too bad, ws it?

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  3. I meant to tell you that I used to have that college class dream all the time! It was a biology or botany class - something science and hard - and I realized I had less than a week to learn everything for the entire semester to take the final.

    I enjoyed this post!

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  4. Rachel, if you added 'grey eyes' to your dream description of yourself, you'd look just like Anne-with-an-e. That's who I always wanted to look like.

    I've seen Rachel and she's beautiful, even without the auburn hair (did any girl who ever read any Anne book NOT want auburn hair?)!

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  5. Thank you ALL for the comments!!! Dreams are the strangest phenomena, aren't they?

    I'm just now getting across to an almost 3-year-old what they are; she didn't get it when I'd say, "Did you have nice dreams?" but then last week she awoke indignant that her cousin Cal had put "all his trucks in MY BED!"

    That helped a little, but it was hard then to explain that he was far away, and it was something she imagined in her sleep.

    I think of all the dreams, I might most enjoy the spilled cards---I DO love the sorting-out and the putting-to-rights all sorts of things; to me they're all puzzles.

    Kim---you too kind; Anne-with-an-e was one of my all-time favorite people, and it was not she of the auburn locks that I've envied---it was a girl in a class at college---she had the most magnificent mane of glossy hair---an indescribable red, but the closest I could ever come (and I made it a point to sit behind her a couple of times so as to stare without offense) to explaining it was that it was exactly like the "Saran hair" which my sister's doll had one Christmas.

    I helped Sis name that doll "Caro" in her honor, and then named my own daughter for her.

    And Kim---I know you work in a doctor's office. Pity it's not an optometrist.

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  6. My friend's daughter described dreams as movies she watches in her sleep. That worked for mine own, when the time came. Maybe it will help w your Little One too.

    I havent had a recurring dream as an adult, but I had three recurring horror movies as a kid. I was very most glad as a teenager/young adult to realize they were no longer playing. If I had your no punch dream, I wake up in a cold sweat, palpitating.

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