Another house dream

Last night, a new dream in my series of house/body dreams. I dreamt that Rasheed's mother came to visit, but it was strange, because she was disguised as Dan Shofner's mom (Dan is a former boyfriend). And the dream:

I am at home with Rasheed in our flat, but it is somehow not our flat - the hall is longer, the room bigger, darker. I'm leaving the very next day for Washington DC, for the JKC scholars' weekend. But that night, Rasheed is having some sort of party there, just a few people. I know no one (or can't remember?), but they are all familiar. It's a fancy dress party, and I'm wearing the dress that I wore as a bridesmaid in my cousin Ann's wedding: lilac, strapless, a straight cut across the chest, a flared skirt - but now, instead of being cocktail-length, it's a long dress, and reaches the floor.

And suddenly, with no knock, in walks Rasheed's mother, but disguised as white, blonde, blue-eyed Cathy Shofner. She is early for her visit! Unannounced! She wasn't supposed to come until after I'd gone. Luckily, I duck unnoticed into a closet. Only once the door is shut, and I am in complete darkness, do I wonder how long I'll be in there. I worry slightly about what I'll do if I need to use the toilet.

As I'm in the closet longer, it becomes a room of its own. It lengthens. The floors are a rough wood, and smell of damp. There is a window at the far end of it, near to the floor. I sit down near the door, but look down the long dark room - almost like a tunnel - at the window. London is not outside of it. Instead, there are tree branches, a lake, snow, I think. It is winter outside of that window, and its world is colorless, but high contrast. The branches are a thick, liquid-black; the lake glistens like wet ink; and the spaces between are blank white (the snow?).

The door to the closet opens a bit; someone has propped it ajar. He comes just inside and sits cross-legged next to me, offering me a drink - a fruit-smoothie type of drink in a clear plastic cup, strawberry and something, a dark, bruised pink with seeds suspended in its inconsistent viscous substance. I accept (nevermind the toilet-anxiety), glad for the company. But another man comes to sit just outside the door. I'm afraid they'll give away my presence there.

But still, I am due to leave the very next day, and I need to pack. She is still there, but distracted, near the windows at the far end of the flat. I escape the closet and clamor up into the loft where we've stored my suitcases, and where, in this dream, we've also stored my winter clothes. I pack my sweaters into my large suitcase, resolving to leave it all behind. I will pack only what I need in my small suitcase and take only this to D.C.

And here, there is a rift in my dream. Suddenly, I have escaped (through the window?)! I am running - sprinting! gulping for air! - down empty platform after platform at the underground, racing on high heels across the dirty concrete under the dingy flourescent lights to catch a train (what train?). But there, on one of the platforms, is an old friend of mine, Cone, whom I haven't seen since winter. She wears a dress similar to mine, lilac, floor-length, but the skirt does not flare, instead clinging to her body all the way down to her feet. She stands facing the empty track and lets me run on behind her. We are the only two on the platform.

"Tessa!" She says my name as I run by. Not quite calls it out: states it. I keep running 'til I've run past a newstand, but then I stop and turn, walk back to her.

"She shot you?" Cone sees the wound straight through my dress. It's the first time in the dream that I realize I'm wearing the dress, and it's the first time I realize that Rasheed's mom has shot me. I had bandaged the wound, right below my ribs, and put the dress back on over it (the dress, miraculously, is neither torn nor blood-stained). I touch my hands to the place where it's happened, and I can feel through the dress and through the bandage that it has already begun to heal; I can see already the skin closing up again over it.

This is where the dream ends. I don't remember the shooting, but maybe it didn't happen in the dream. Was the gunshot the physical manifestion of the invasion of the house? And where was Rasheed during this dream? I hadn't even said goodbye.

I woke up still feeling the wound, and woke not afraid, but slightly disturbed. I make no conclusions.

(And then I read Lee's Virginia Woolf and then did an interview for the Rockford Register Star and then Rasheed & I went to the Victoria & Albert to see the new gallery of Islamic Middle East art that just opened last week which I may or may not write more about later but he's just brought what he calls "chippos" [allusion to The Simpsons] and Gilmore Girls on DVD home, so I'm off for now!]