I found this note I wrote myself about a dream I had last summer.
I've been doing a lot of storage reorganizing. When I first started, I pulled out some wire hangers to replace them with better ones (it seems like I'm always doing this -- I don't know how they manage to multiply) and I came across a hanger that I'd brought back from Alabama earlier this year. It's a wire hanger that is, for lack of a better term, slipcovered with a knitted tube of blue acrylic yarn. Not really a tube, because it's sort of twisted around. Anyhow, it was something that my mother had for as long as I can remember, something she made. I don't know if there were others like it, I just remember that it would sometimes find its way into my closet, but usually it was in the laundry room.
When I found it, I hung it on the inside doorknob on my bedroom door, so I see it a lot. I can't tell you how much I've thought of that hanger since then. I wonder why she did it. Clearly, it was supposed to make it a little nicer to use. Did she read about it in Good Housekeeping or something? Did she make more than that one? Did she have big plans to cover all her hangers, only to stop when she realized how time consuming it was? Because she was who she was, I imagine she was both pleased with herself and amused at what a silly thing it was. Like so many other things, I wish I knew the story of that hanger.
Saturday night it somehow came up and I told Joe that I was sure there was some sweet and silly story behind it, and how I wished I knew what it was. That was probably the extent of the conversation -- I don't remember saying anything else.
Fast-forward to sometime in the early Sunday hours, when I was asleep. I dreamt that Mother was here and we were sitting on the couch, talking and laughing. It was on one hand totally normal, yet I was aware that I felt nervous. Then I remembered the hanger and said I had something to ask her about and went to get it. As I was walking up the stairs, my conscious mind (which one? my dream conscious mind, or my real one...and is one more real than the other?) was saying "You know she isn't really here, this is just a dream. Don't do this to yourself." But the me in the dream said "No, she might tell me the story."
The last part of the dream that I can remember was me walking back down the stairs with the hanger.
Comments