TheBanyanTree: Dreams

[Monique Young]

                I had the dream again. The wedding dress dream. These are
not pleasant experiences, except the weather is always, in these dreams,
particularly conducive to the situation. I try to take comfort in this. The
rest of the dream was not nearly as pleasant. 

                It was not particularly unpleasant, but it was May 4th, and
I had yet to pick up my dress. So I thought. Then I realized that I had yet
to find a dress, which caused no small amount of panic. But let me start at
the beginning. 

                May 5th is the date of the wedding, in real life. While my
approach is somewhat relaxed towards this event, it appears that
subconsciously my subconscious is not quite as sanguine. The dream began
with me at my old office, the one I no longer work at. Having come in late,
I was faced with a computer that too many people had been playing with, a
boss who kept answering my phone behind me and telling people I didn’t work
there, and the thought that I should be attending to wedding planning of
some sort. So I took a lunch break. One can easily find a dress for one’s
wedding on a lunch break, especially if one skips lunch at Le Chateau and
goes for a drive through burger instead. 

                Once I realized that the dress I’d thought I’d ordered and
had only to pick up was in fact only a figment of my imagination (and good
thing too, as if was a bit elaborate and gold encrusted), I then embarked on
shopping. Fortunately my fiancé and a friend of mine were both along, but
they were having trouble finding coffee and were rather focused on that.
None of us had thought to bring along our wallets and Starbucks likes
payment in exchange for coffee. 

                They took me to Sears. When I think of Sears, I think of
power tools, not wedding dresses, but my friend assured me that they had
quite a selection. I went in search of dresses while she and my fiancé
drifted off on another coffee hunt.

                While searching for dresses I thought of all the guests who
would be descending upon us shortly, and hoped I’d be done finding a dress
before it was time to entertain them. I found clothing, but nothing
resembling dresses, and eventually a sales clerk directed me to the Garden
Center. “The wedding department has been relocated. Go out the door, down
the street, turn right, where it says “Garden Center,” and ask for the
wedding dresses.” 

                I thought this was rather strange, but went along with it.
If Sears wasn’t going to work, I knew I’d have to hit Macy’s next. At least
I have an account there. 

                The front of the Garden Center had a wide selection of
coats, but no dresses. When I asked the potting department, they brought out
a gentleman who began asking a series of questions. What kind of dress did I
want? What color? What was the theme of the wedding? “Good God,” I asked,
“Do you have dresses or not?”

                “Of course not,” he responded, “they must be ordered.”

                “I don’t have time for that,” I either mumbled or shouted
(my dream memories are not always very clear), “The wedding’s tomorrow!”

                “You should have considered that several months ago,
shouldn’t you have?”

                I couldn’t argue with his logic, but this wasn’t
particularly helpful.

                I left Sears in disgust, dressless, and hoped I’d be able to
find what I needed at Macy’s, off the rack, and ready to go for the next
day. 

                As if that would ever happen. This would be akin to the
natural laws of the universe reversing themselves, and we know how often
that happens. I don’t know if my dream continued after that, or if I ever
found a dress, or if I showed up at my wedding in jeans and a
paint-splattered t-shirt. Either I woke up, or my dream continued along its
path without me. 

                This is my problem with a wedding dress: I don’t know what I
want. Something flowy. Not in white. I don’t feel comfortable in white, and
whether that’s my advanced years or the fact that white makes me look like a
ghost, I don’t know. I don’t want something that makes me look stiff, or
dorky, or fat, or like I’m trying to hide my age, or like I’m 70, or
anything that will make people tsk tsk when looking at me . Since I am at
various times one, two, or all of these things, I expect the dress to be a
wonder dress, capable of miracles and spontaneously adaptable to my
mercurial temperament. Also, no beads, no sequins, no feathers, no sparkly
nor shiny accoutrements. 

                One would think this would be easy, right?