I had two dreams just before I woke up this morning.
The first was about eggplant parmesan. I decided it should have béchamel sauce in it, and that the egg yolk in the sauce would give it a rich yummy colour.* What to do with the remaining egg white became a problem generating some anxiety.
The second dream was about my Uncle Kevin. He was explaining to us that he hadn’t travelled as much as he would have liked, and that it was time for a change. He would quit his job at the Cleveland Clinic and practice overseas. He would join the army and go to Kandahar!
At which point my Uncle Kevin ripped off all his clothes and started boogying backwards down a busy street, naked, on roller-blades, joyfully singing Kandahar! to the tune of the Village People’s YMCA. This was an unexpected development, but deeply moving.
The first dream was easy to decode. My mother and I made an eggplant casserole for Easter dinner today and I was mentally rehearsing it.
The second dream was also easy. I recently finished reading a book in the Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency series set in Botswana.** Our heroine spends a certain amount of time in each book looking forward to retirement in a village with her husband, where they will putter and enjoy their memories. I realised that the life I lead, in which my dreams, challenges and ambitions do not rise above the level of preparing a vegetable casserole and making good use of leftover egg whites, is not going to supply me with many interesting memories to get me through old age. It hadn’t really occurred to me before that I would need to lay down memories for future use, assuming that I would just keep busy. In fact, people slow down as they age and have the time to review memories. Which they do, as they rest in between being busy.
I don’t know if Kandahar is where I need to be, but I think I need to learn to roller-blade.
*No, real-world béchamel sauce does not contain eggs. Only in dreams.
**Nostalgic and sentimental, but I like nostalgic and sentimental. Totally stuffwhitepeoplelike.com which makes sense, because I am totally white people.