Awake to A Dream

Recent college touring with my daughter 

“... much as Mr. Beresford disliked the subway, he might still have to take it, to get home on any sort of time. Walking downtown, his candy box under his arm, his gray suit almost unaffected by the crush on the corner, Mr. Beresford decided to swallow his annoyance and remember it was his wife’s birthday; he began to hum again as he walked.”

“Paranoia” by Shirley Jackson

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Dear Alex,

For several nights in passing, I have been haunted by the casual stalking of ordinary men at bus stops and women on stairways in “Dark Tales”, a collection of short stories by Shirley Jackson. All seems fine, time and toes tapping in chorus, until the thread of monologues and observations snaps out of line and your canvas of familiarity rips to swallow you whole.

The quote above has an unsettling origin of discovery - no date of writing, not imposing or known until Jackson’s son unraveled it on paper among cartons of several dozen stories unpublished by the late author. A tale of tales, the spin of circumstances exposing these unsorted manuscripts has emerged from the secrets as darkly as the drama of the writer herself - and ours. Nothing in costume or skin is obvious. The greater intrigue rests not in our difference, but in our commonality.

If we may be bold enough to see story as truth, fiction for life, we begin to creep closer to the realism of our paranoia. Something is clinging onto you by day or dream. You try to sweat it off, dismiss or depersonalize it but it sticks on you like a name. And maybe what’s most ecstatic about this thing is it is painless. You don’t even feel it. It feels and feeds you without your awareness.

I have just awoken from a nightmare to a dream. I saw my mother in our younger years, her sewing many outfits for me - my prom dress, evening gown and qi pao, all of her handiwork in organza, satin and velvet of blood red, my favorite shade. I have trashed or lost them, not a shred of her thread now lingering in my closet.

She and I would go on Fraser Street in the weekends to the fabric store where we weaved between aisles for hours to handpick my choice of pattern and texture. One summer she was pregnant with my sister, her belly raging with hope, rounding up and down the stairs with me before pausing at the second floor with more textile of deeper discounts from seasons slipped. We took the bus and walked home by sunset.

My daughter’s birthday has just passed. We have never taken the bus nor visited fabric stores in town. Not too long ago I noticed a bag of chocolates tucked in part under her stash of jeans in the closet - jeans and candies that will soon move from home to college dorm. I have been arranging plans for her, assorting dates and bills, mending fights, falling asleep to be awakened to my paranoia in folds this night.

Yours, Kate