Fairy Tale Drama

I dreamed that it was Thanksgiving and our family was having a lot of people over. We got my mom’s wheelchair-bound friend Sonia upstairs and in through the back door like we used to back in Snellville when she was still alive. Everyone was eating and enjoying. I went downstairs and noticed that there were a group of dressed-up people downstairs who seemed to be waiting to be invited up. I didn’t know them and they seemed a bit trashy. I awkwardly went past them to go back upstairs, and apparently suggested that they be included, after which they were invited up and were grateful to me for it.

I saw some people swimming in a fountain in the front yard and thoughtlessly jumped in too, then realized I’d been carrying three books with me. I thought they were the ones I’d carried yesterday, two recovery books and my appointment book. But as I fished them out I realized the appointment book was an old one, from 10 years ago, 1991. A girl flipped through it and noticed my childish handwriting plus the useful appendices in the back and asked if she could keep it for the useful info. I agreed, explaining that I was 10 years old when I started the habit of keeping appointment books.

I walked around our circular neighborhood, observing other families celebrations and occasionally exchanging brief greetings. I came around to someone who knew one of my drug connections. She said that “Matt" and "Rachel” had lived briefly in the house across the street but everyone knew they wouldn’t last long, and indeed they were now gone. I wanted to talk to her more but she retreated to her house. She seemed to live alone.

The next house I came to had a huge elevated circular stage in their front yard, decorated like a layered birthday cake. It was a family of eight, a middle-aged husband and wife and their six young adult children, four daughters and two sons. They were all dressed as royalty and I came to understand that they put on regular performances of fairy tales. The father, who seemed to be in charge, dubbed me Princess Winstonia with some condescension because I was smoking, although I noted his wife and all four daughters smoked somewhat guiltily. They offered to include me in their drama and I was excited. I was costumed and they started to play.

The father wanted to pair me with their older son, but it was the younger one I found attractive. I managed to get my way and ended up paired with the one I liked by being quick on horseback: when he rode past me and dropped his crown. I scooped it up before it hit the ground. I noticed a few Stephen King books around and quoted something from one of the short story books, and they knew about it and we talked more about his books. Knowing that they approved of Stephen King, when I got backed into a corner in the drama, I suggested that I turn into a huge blood-drinking spider and wreak havoc on everything. I demonstrated this with my hands being the spider and a birthday cake representing the stage, using my hands to mash up the cake and spin a web of red icing all around it. I realized they were taping the production, and my prince and I were resting along side, not in the current action and just staying out of the way of the camera. He said, “This is it until tomorrow, and he’ll probably recast us as perverts and have us in an orgy in the royal coatroom, so let’s go out tonight and get wasted.” I was ready to run off with him, eager to find out whether he really like me too or was just playing along with me as his partner in the drama.


July 2010

Retrospective Commentary: At this time, I had the desire to stop using opiates but did not yet have the ability. I think this dream is about the conflict that I felt introducing my straight-laced family to all of these clean addicts in the recovery community who were becoming my new friends. It felt strange because I'd always hung out with other actively drug-using addicts but had tried to keep those two worlds apart. The community of recovery felt like some kind of performance that I wanted to join but wasn't sure how to start. And the fragility of my sobriety is emphasized by my willingness to run out and get wasted with my prince.