In Dreams

I had a dream the other night that, while not disturbing, was certainly thought provoking. I seldom remember dreams unless I'm awakened in the middle of one. This dream apparently startled me into awareness. Although I don’t recall the entire sequence, what I do remember went something like this:

I was at the sink in my kitchen. A woman with me. We were cleaning dishes and both of us were smiling. I had a comfortable feeling that she was someone that I had known for a long time. Our arms touched briefly as we worked at the sink, the sensation of warm skin against my own very pleasurable and somehow soothing. When she spoke, I turned and glanced at her.

"Eric, I’m going to help you clean up your life."

It wasn’t her words that woke me; it was the unexpected recognition when I stared into her eyes. I'll call her Cicely. I had known her since the first grade. We had graduated from high school together.

While I had long known Cicely, we had never been close friends and certainly not lovers. We had never, in fact, had any kind of personal relationship, at least in this lifetime. Still, in my dream she felt like a trusted confidante. Should I call her, tell her about my dream and express the way I felt about her? I can’t. Cicely died of cancer this past summer.

This brings me back to pondering the dream’s meaning. Maybe it has no meaning. Maybe we are all destined to live parallel lives with many lovers and confidantes as the wheels of a giant life machine spins one slow story after the next. Maybe Shakespeare had it right when he said, "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."

My dream leaves me to wonder just how many parts I have played, and who were my fellow actors, and did all the stories end with song and dance on a festive summer night, or perhaps the sudden shock of unexpected pain?