It’s a common dream scenario. You’re engaged in some sort of public activity with performance expectations, such as a job interview or taking a school exam, and everything goes wrong. You miss the bus. Parts keep falling off your car, and the road to your destination turns into a rutted dead end alley. You’re not sure of the address, and then it proves to be an enormous confusing building with no directory and no functioning elevator. When you finally find the room, it has no roof, and it’s raining. You realize you are woefully under-prepared for whatever trial awaits, and to top it off, you’re wearing nothing but your underwear.
The details differ from dreamer to dreamer, but most people can relate to the general plot. Interpretations vary. The one I find most plausible notes that the dream usually involves a past trial that the dreamer did in fact pass successfully, that it is triggered by present anxiety, and that it serves as a reminder to pay attention to details. For example, if I am planning to drive to a job interview later in the week, the dream with the malfunctioning car reminds me to check fluid levels and fill the gas tank.
I sometimes joke that I dread the possibility that my dreams will come true, for then I will end up stranded in Heathrow Airport wearing dirty disreputable underwear. Recently something of that very nature happened to me. In the midst of a long train of frustrations I realized that I had taught an entire class in my underwear! They say that one’s serenity improves when one’s greatest fears are realized, and prove to be less distressing than the anticipation. Only time will tell whether this is the case here. However, I did get a vivid illustration of how a sense of humor, including the ability to laugh at myself, defused a situation.
I had signed up to teach a class in trapunto quilting at a Society for Creative Anachronism Crown tournament. The woman who scheduled classes sent me very vague instructions about how to find the class venue, and when I arrived at the site, no one was able to direct me. The tent encampment spread over nearly a square mile of pasture, and there was no site map. Failing to locate anyone with information on Friday night, I arose early on Saturday morning, threw a coat over my shift, grabbed the bag of class materials, and went in search of the coordinator (Kassandra) and the classroom tent, figuring that an hour was plenty of time to get situated and return to my camp to get dressed and eat breakfast before class started at nine.
This was a vain hope. All of the numerous places to which I was directed were located at the furthest reaches of the sprawling encampment. I walked at least two miles, getting increasingly frustrated. At one point I was directed to a “green dragon wing in the archery encampment,” which was actually correct information, but I was unaware that a “green dragon wing” was a type of tent, and mistakenly assumed that the tent with the green winged dragon painted on its side (which was empty) was my destination.
At 9:10, as I was ready to throw in the towel entirely, I found someone to physically escort me to the correct “green dragon wing” and was able to start the class – as soon as the students showed up, because most of them had as much trouble finding the spot as I did. By then it was hot, so naturally I shed the coat before launching into teaching. When I teach I become quite absorbed. It was only at the end of two hours that I realized that I was inadequately clothed, as well as hungry and thirsty. Well, it could have been worse. Fourteenth-century underwear covers up a lot more than 21st century underwear, and the students were all women.
Being late and disorganized is anachronistically “period” for an era when everything moved more slowly. Sometimes it’s useful to look in that distant mirror of the past as a way to accept something that seems a glaring imperfection in the present, which would formerly have been irremediable. That way I am at least spared some of the anxiety, guilt and resentment that surfaces when something goes wrong because I, or some other party, have not done everything perfectly.
Image Credit
Photo by Martha Sherwood. All rights reserved.
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