The Competition

Last night was another one of those nights were my dreams take me to a world all my own. What I like about the dreams that involve my parents, or sisters, who are all deceased, is the large space of the buildings we happen to live in. The houses in the dreams are spacious, modern, cool temperature wise, with soft, white carpeting throughout. In the dream last night, my parents were hanging out with me, but were living in separate houses, accurate to what actually transpired the last 8 years of their lives. In the dream, my siblings were not around. The circumstances of the dream were vague, but it somehow involved a dance competition. I was in my early twenties, and it was summer, and hot, and the dance competition was held in a large outdoor tent. To my surprise, the dance partner assigned to me was my cousin Dirk. He is the eldest son of my father's sister, Denise. Tante Denise just turned 87 in March, and my cousin Dirk must be 63 by now. When I was growing up, I had a crush on Dirk, something of which my parents did not seem to approve. This disapproval was something I did not know about until just a few months ago. I was 16 at the time, and my cousin was doing an internship at the factory were my father was CEO. Dirk was invited by my father to eat lunch for those summer months at our house. It seems my father was encouraged by my mother to stop that arrangement when it became obvious to her that I liked my cousin. Perhaps it made my father uneasy too, because he certainly agreed not to let my cousin come back the next summer. My crush was harmless, as my cousin and I were never alone, and it really makes me sad to think his future was partially compromised because he and I liked each other. Interestingly enough, when it came to the sons of her brother and sister, my mother actually encouraged the crushes my sister and I had on them. That seems very biased in retrospect. Anyhow, that is all water under the sludgy bridge.The dance competition in the dream was really fun. Apparently Dirk was as nervous about being my partner as was I. He did a really good job and remembered all the moves to the tango we were doing really well, not just technically, but also emotionally. We won hands down to generous applause. By then my parents had faded in the dream. The dream faded too, and I woke up smiling and shaking my head at the surprising dream. In the reality of waking hours, the dream seems to imply that the longing to overcome the huge gap left by my parents' animosity in their marriage and the resulting dismissal of my father to a retirement home in Belgium, never is far from my mind. The longing to have been allowed to know my cousins on my father's side as well as my cousins on my mother's side, and to close that gaping void of having been left out of a lifetime of friendships and connections. The cousins on my father's side are all grandparents now. But in my mind, apparently the longing to have a chance at being children together, teenagers together, once more with a fair chance of interaction, is still very strong. As it turns out, I would probably have very little to say to my cousin Dirk today, but I do have a good connection to his kind younger brother Marc, and I have a good connection now with the children of Tante Blanche, the second recently deceased sister of my father. That friendship is proving very powerful and healing, especially with Blanche's eldest daughter, Myriam, a highly intelligent and interesting woman, who I looked up to as a child. To be allowed to get to know her and her daughter now is a wonderful experience, courtesy of modern technology. The dream about Dirk is just wishful thinking, a longing for all of us to be friends in mutual respect and understanding. Somewhere, sometime, if nothing else, in the realm of the dream world.