Pregnancy Dreams

For forever now I've been thinking about what my next "serious" writing project will be. Happily, I have no shortage of bits of ideas; unhappily, I don't have any substantial ideas, nor do I have any substantial work. I've got a few little things, but not much. It feels obvious to write about pregnancy or family or womanness or something like that, but I've never wanted to do the expected thing (damn that I'm really predictable in some ways, despite my hard work). However, to ignore the enormous thing that's happening doesn't seem very honest and, honestly, I don't know that I'll ever be doing this again. Still, that doesn't leave me with a whole lot of original room in which to move. Parenting and pregnancy books and blogs are a dime a dozen-- even the literary ones (see this book of poetry for astoundingly complex and unique writing about pregnancy and childbirth-- not for the literal minded). Not that I think I'm too fancy or smart for that subject-- on the contrary, someone's said it before and said it better-- certain death for a piece of writing looking for love and attention.

I am, however, completely enamored and also vexed by the fabulous dreams I have. It's by far the best 'symptom" of pregnancy. For a girl who likes to nap, having beautiful entertainment while doing so is a bonus. If I could only eat cake with buttercream icing while sleeping and dreaming, well, that'd be something. So these dreams haven't been scary or sad-- so far. They have that potential every time, mostly because, in the dream, I usully have or see or do something lovely and impossible. In waking life, that could seem really frustrating, but I wake up feeling better than before I had the dream. I would love to write about it, but that's a subject that will get the kiss of death-- a bloody, eviscerating, screams-of-agony kind of smooch.

Case in point: I dreamed that I was back east for some kind of family gathering. In my grandfather's house was an enormous collection of my grandmother's things that he was preparing to give away. Before he could, my cousin and I rifled through it. It wasn't the case in real life that she had racks and racks of costume jewelry or cabinets of handbags and hats, but in the dream she sure did. It was immensly satisfying to pull handfuls of tarnished necklaces off of their hooks and slip on chunky wood bracelets. It wasn't so much that they were well-maintained vintage pieces (they were), but that I had the distinct feeling that I remembered my grandma wearing each one of them. Even the hats. The last thing I was holding before I woke up was a purse with wooden handles. The fabric was white with bright green and yellow flowers. As with all the other dreams, I thought about it for a few minutes before I got out of bed and was pleased that, instead of being sad or scary, the dream was full of stylish stuff and it seemed right that my cousin and I got to play with all the sparklies.

Fast forward to the mid-afternoon of the same day. I'd been suffering a hideous headache for a day and a half and decided to just give up. I drove halfway to work and u-turned my way home; it was that miserable. When I ended up on the couch by 3 pm, I was in tears. Enough headache. Enough, enough, enough. And then I remembered the dream. The more I remembered of the dream, the sadder I felt. Somehow the dream had disguised (or made palatable?) some sort of real lurking sadness. I ended up crying and crying like a giant baby-- for the first time in ages. I'd rather not really dissect why I was so sad, but the experience reminded me that pregnancy is a hell of a hormonal-emotional ride. While my dreams are better than any drug I may or may not have taken (Hi, future employer who cleverly found this evidence of my depraved life!) they are only a tiny hormonal shift away from being heart-breaking memories. It's astounding.

And so there you have a moderately disguised HOLY-SHIT-YOU-WON'T-BELIEVE-THE-DREAM-I-HAD-LAST-NIGHT post. For your information, none of you are as unfortunate as poor, sweet, Melanie, my friend and co-worker who had a starring role in my dream last night. She had to sit through the retelling of a narrative that involved the following tragically annoying highlights:

• Joan Rivers in an ice cream shop


• A pair of Manolo Blahnik heels (my size) stolen from Joan Rivers

• Melanie's engagement to the super-cute guy from Across the Universe



• The new outdoor office I worked in, complete with grass floor and tent ceiling




• an auction of a gigantic fuzzy stray dog that Melanie won, AFTER she announced her engagement

• Poor Melanie

You can understand why Melanie might want to know that she stole JR's shoes for me, got engaged, and won a dog, don't you? She was thrilled to know.

xoxoxo

k

p.s. we have the big ultrasound Tuesday morning. Please cross fingers and toes. I'm excited to know if it's a girl bean or a boy bean, but I'm more nervous to know if it's healthy. So nervous that I have a back-up plan for my day should something go wrong. I hope that's not too weird.