I dreamt badly last night. I sat on a wobbly, wooden chair with old brown slats and splinters and my bare feet on cement floor. I looked around and recognized the old tabernacle, as it was called in my childhood; the place of summer worship where many of us came together in various states of willingness.
There, seated among us in the summer months, were those who were not ‘us’…people from the back hollers with homes on roads where dust gusted up in voluminous clouds when driven on; the clap trap shed and the occasional fencing…they were all there…some with missing teeth, women with long hair tightly wrapped up in buns on the back of their necks…different ways of talking. They were serious. They were dedicated and good. They were different from us in a thousand ways, but we made it work because theologically we were united. But then…when the family next to us started spitting tobacco…well, we were stunned into quiet and shocked acceptance.
I look up in my dream and realize I’m wearing a pink, frilly nightgown…good for July in New York, not mid October and two women in tweed, wool scarves, thick leggings…speak at me in that academic way, that I way I know. But I’m way underdressed and vulnerable and my feet are bare. The taller one adjusts her glasses and sighs, ‘You really must turn in that paper about teaching in a pandemic. We’ve explained technology sooooooo many times. Really…’. They look at each other.
The sound of an approaching truck rumbles and tumbles into the middle of their admonition and they say, ‘Oh, here he is’. They look at me. ‘It would be good to go greet him’. I am unwilling to go. I wrap my gown around me, pick up my books, a blanket and a drink…all having suddenly appeared at my feet and I look at them again. This is a staring contest, only I keep bending over to rub my feet. Suddenly it all comes to me, such relief…a wave of glorious relief. I stand up and calmly speak. ‘I’ve been doing this for almost twenty-six years. Twenty-six years. And despite all this technology, despite this pandemic…I had meaningful teaching experiences with my students this week’.
They stare at me. I take a deep breath. ‘So I guess I don’t really care about your paper anymore. I just don’t care’. I flap a cream colored sheet of heavy linen stationery at them. On this expensive piece of paper, there is a finely painted water color scene…the kind of work my grandmother used to paint. It is lovely. Elegant. Fragile. It will not last if I drop it on the damp cement.
The two women move away from me, heading toward the man in the rumbling truck. I am suddenly awake…thank goodness. It’s not real. Maybe it is. I explain the dream to my husband. He just shakes his head. ‘Remember, you don’t care about their paper, girl’.
690 Saint Paul 