I have very vivid dreams. Very strange dreams, yet very vivid.
“Last night I dreamt that we went to visit an apartment in Amsterdam that had two huge labrador retrievers, and there was this whole other side with an indoor balcony and a pool and arcade games! Oh, and it was also attached to a school, so if you turned one corner in the house, it would become the hallway of the entrance with kids walking around,” I tell you. “We were going to rent it for the summer because I was supposed to work at my summer camp, even though that’s in Massachusetts… anyway! Later, everyone from TikTok who was looking at the apartment was ravenous for it, and the guy who owned it ended up being killed?? But somehow his agent gave us the key code… anyway, his whole family was gone, even his two curly-headed sons. But then fast forward years later, and they were trying to woo my student to exact revenge!”
Every time I share one of these dreams with you, you laugh, marveling at the strange inner workings of my brain.
“You’re my favorite weirdo,” you tell me. And you’re mine.
Last night I woke up from a no-less-vivid but much-more-intense dream.
It started out in Miami, but some lush green area outside of the center, where one of the teachers at our school had just moved to. The buildings looked old, castle or university vibes, like they belonged in England. I went into one and joined a spin class, then waited for everyone to arrive so class could begin. A girl from my middle school arrived, said some odd things that didn’t make sense, and then sort of blasted off into the ceiling. From there, the dream turned into an adventure: a live-action advent calendar. (I know.) I opened the presents, which each had presents within, and realized, “Hey, this toy would be good for my niece and nephew, and this one is good for Phoebe.”
“That’s the point,” my sister Tillie (in the dream), said. A rush of love filled me as I realized she had set up this level of the advent calendar for me so that I could essentially regift the gifts to everyone in my life.
The advent-adventure led us to Málaga, only it was like Roosevelt Island, long and skinny, with water on both sides, and had some skyscrapers like a mini-Manhattan. We flew over, I pointed out where Emma lived, and then touched down. We stopped at a grocery store, and noticed Trump and Vance sitting with their wives at a table outside in the parking lot. We walked over and it was like they were playing themselves on SNL:
“I’m the con man,” Trump said, smug and proud.
“And I’m the head of the mafia,” said Vance.
They all giggled, the women acting like, “oh, you guys,” and you and I shared a look, disgusted. Let’s get out of here.
We hopped in the car, and I looked back at the table. Just beyond them, I saw it: a VW Bus! In blue!
“Look, babe, it’s a blue VW Bus!”
As you looked, we saw a wave starting to rise up on the other side of the road.
“That looks really big, no?” I asked.
It was. It came crashing down, causing an accident on the road.
Shit, shit, shit. “Let’s go!” I cried.
You hit the gas and headed north, waves coming up and crashing down from our side as well. I hoped our old car would hold up. I held my arms over my head just in case. Things were flying around in the sky, raining down at us in opposite intervals to the waves.
“Go, go, go!”
Somehow, we miraculously avoided damage, but I don’t know how the scene ended, because of course, I woke up.
“You won’t believe the dream I just had,” I started forming the words in my head. But I kept my mouth shut because I noticed the clock: 4:15. Ugh.
I got up to go to the bathroom, came back to bed, then scribbled blindly the key details of the dream in my bedside notebook. I got under the covers, pulled my eye mask down, and held your hand.
Then I tossed, and turned, and tossed and turned again.
Another insomnia morning. Better get up and just write this slice!
Writing With Abandon 
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