I had a dream this morning.

It started out as a nightmare, that classic things going wrong dream, where you have a show to give or a piece to perform and don’t remember your lines.

I was to give a presentation or teach a class.

I had been hanging out with friends in a theatre space, something vaguely like the McMillan Theatre. No I’ve never done that before.

And I suddenly remembered that I was scheduled to talk about something upstairs, (even though hm, wait, isn’t the classroom downstairs?) So I was quibbling with the dream already.

I realized that I didn’t have the CD for the music I was supposed to discuss. And I didn’t have notes. For a microsecond I was nervous.

There are broadly speaking two kinds of dreams. I don’t mean “fun” and “scary” although I suppose that is also true. I meant to divide dreams between the ones where you are immersed in the dream as though it were your reality (and it can scare you because you believe in it), and the ones where you know you’re dreaming, which is called “lucid dreaming”.

So it dawned on me that I was dreaming.

And I had a marvelous epiphany during the dream. Ha, I should hope so. Who wants a banal epiphany or a boring epiphany? But I really mean it. As I noticed how odd the situation was – that I’m supposed to give a presentation when I’m not currently enrolled in any courses nor am I teaching—it hit me, that, wait, it’s 2020. Nobody is doing any of these things right now.

And I had the fun realization that not only was this a dream but hey, I could talk about anything I wanted in the classroom. Sure, that’s always the case: that a teacher doesn’t necessarily have to be a slave to curriculum or structure.

But I was particularly aware, that this was an opportunity, an unreal magical moment.

I miss the EJB, the theatres & concert spaces, the gatherings of people including the ones who are excited to be there. And even if some are bored I miss them too. I miss the whole kit & kaboodle.

It was nice to be temporarily immersed in a world that I’m not able to visit right now, and even nicer to know that it could be like a playground, in this dream. At one point I was rushing to take the elevator upstairs and of course it was in the wrong place, and when the door opened the floor was 3 feet away from proper alignment. I climbed in, amused that the floor was more like the dirt in the garden outside than a real elevator, an amalgam of recent experiences (I’ve been raking leaves this week, not riding elevators at the EJB). I climbed in thinking my jacket would get dirty and it would be fun explaining this to the listeners at the presentation: and knowing that, no I suppose it was just a dream.

The dream didn’t last long once I realized what was up.

And it was Saturday morning. I was grateful that Erika had let me sleep in, and had taken the dog outside for me, sparing me one of the usual morning chores.

Hm, come to think of it, it’s a pleasure to walk outside watching the dog romping around in the yard. Not a chore at all. It’s a pleasure.

I went to make coffee, to shake off sleep, to tell Erika about the dream…and to make the dog her breakfast.