Last night I dreamt I was in Paris. I’ve never been to Paris, so the dream was full of what I imagine Paris to be and what I’ve seen on TV. I remember discussing pastries with a woman I met through a mutual acquaintance – a man who looked like a heavier version of the Sallah, the character from Indiana Jones. The woman later revealed that she didn’t like the man very much, but she agreed with him that the chocolate croissants were fantastic, maybe the best in the city.
At another point in the dream I sat next to an elderly woman with white hair wearing a blue sweater. We sat on a park bench. I didn’t know her, but was watching as she opened three or four small packages. The parcels were neatly wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Each package was a book from a dear friend, and in each book was a half-page hand-written letter…. Dearest Magritte, or something like that. The letters were long and elegant and slanted like cursive. She may have been alone, but had friends and admirers from other parts of the world.
At yet another point, I was in a large open room with white walls and blond wooden floors. The room might have been the size of a tennis court. There were people milling about the way they do in a hotel lobby, and it might have been a hotel lobby or an airport concourse. A young, lithe woman with short red hair who was from Ireland was with me. We were strangers, but she insisted that I hold her from behind, draping my arms around her neck and shoulders. We were watching something on a TV hanging in from high up on a wall, like the TV screens that announce airplane arrivals and departures screen. She was married, but her husband was gay and with a man, perhaps somewhere else in the room. She reassured me that this affection was ok because, after all, this is Paris.
I seldom remember my dreams. When I do, they tend to be vivid. If they stick with me, I like to try to think about what might have influenced them. I follow a writer who is living in Paris… that might have influenced the setting. I have no idea where Sallah or the desire for pastries came from. The woman on the bench reminds me of a woman I knew whose brother once teased her that she she would grow old alone and live in a apartment with only a refrigerator and her books… but this was such a nicer, more affection picture of that life – not alone at all, but cared for and about. I have no idea about the woman from Ireland other than I tend to have a thing for redheads. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more of interpretation to be had, but I like the disjointed and somewhat surreal nature of the dream (or dreams) and I enjoyed the lingering afterthoughts of Paris and the intimacy of strangers.