Dreams

I had two weird dreams last night.

In one, I was eating at a cafeteria with someone from grad school, and complained about my grading load.  Until he, with the totally confident look he always had, mentioned that he taught four courses of comp every semester.  (I don't think he does, though, but in a dream, these things happen.)

The other dream was far weirder.  I was visiting a hospital, walking in with a friend, K, who wasn't well somehow, but was going to see the Pope, who was in the hospital ill.  I was also hoping to visit a famous writer, perhaps James Baldwin, who was also ill.  (Dreams are weird.)  K (in my dream, K is Catholic, but in the flesh, K isn't, I don't think) went in to visit the Pope.  And I waited outside.

Then there was a little electronic ding that meant I was to go in, so I did, and there, in separate but nearby beds, were James Baldwin, the Pope (Francis), and my friend K, who'd now been admitted.  There weren't any staff folks around, and the Pope wanted to go use the restroom, so I helped him up out of the bed.  He was spry, despite being ill, and sort of bouncy, but also in need of an elbow to hold.  He was also in his white cassock, and quite pleasant, in the way he seems publicly.

So we walked through a sort of labyrinth, trying to find the restroom en suite with the hospital room, and were having trouble, and the Pope was thinking of using a floor drain, but I suggested we'd find the restroom.  And then my alarm went off.


I can only think: I shouldn't complain about the grading load, or teaching or whatever.

And the Pope thing?  I have no idea.  When I woke, it made me think of the Sharon Olds Poem.