In my dream, I’m waking up groggy, almost hungover. I’m in someone else’s house, one that does not exist in real life, as often happens in a dream. It’s a warm place, though. Brightly lit and beautifully decorated with warm colors and inviting bedspreads. A friend is there. Perhaps it’s her house. I haven’t seen her years, yet we go about our morning routines like we do it everyday. We share the bathroom, splashing water on our faces and drying our skin with the same towel. We sip coffee while she turns on the television to some show or movie I have seen recently, in actual waking life, like Pretty Woman or The L Word. We’re slow moving and content. Smiling and comfortable, relaxed and happy. About half an hour after we’ve woken up, we wander upstairs through the many levels of this strange house, noticing all the people who are waking up from their slumbers, who share this strange house with us — people I don’t recognize, unfamiliar faces. We enter a small room, a nursery, and lift the little baby from her crib. She isn’t crying, but she’s been awake much longer than we have. She’s mine, I think, though I do not feel like a mother.
•••••••••••••
We’re sitting at a breakfast table, in a busy cafe. The baby is in my lap, squirming and I hardly know how to hold her. The cafe is like a scene from The Planet — Kit is bringing us lattes. We are laughing and talking wildly with Bette and Tina, Shane and Alice. I am in The Fucking L Word. I am looking at a wine list over breakfast, choosing the red with more “grr” in it, as the menu states — Grenache, perhaps. 
I set the baby on the brick floor, on her back. She squirms there, uncomfortable and neglected-like. The table next to us coos over her as she wrestles to gain control over her positioning. I am an awkward, maybe even horrible, mother.
When I wake, I wonder if it is my subconscious telling me that I really do want children, that I’ve been fooling myself all along thinking that I really never want to be a mom. I wonder if my subconscious is saying, “You’ve found someone you can imagine spending the rest of your life with. You’ve found someone who would make a wonderful father. Now it’s time to admit that you want children. Now it’s time to stop feeling like a child who has been irrevocably hurt by your divorced parents. Now it’s time to stop pretending that your childhood has had any influence on the things you want in your life. Now it’s time to face the truth — you want to be a mom.”
I describe my dream awkwardly, trying to understand it while forcing the words out of my mouth. When I’m clear-headed and rested, I tell my subconscious to shut the hell up and shove it.
Lately, I’ve had this Move-To-New-York Daydream. A close relative to this dream is the I-Want-To-Be-A-DJ Dream. Yes, a DJ. I’m beginning to think that I’m actually two people:
the a.r.w. #1 has recently become a Latin American Studies grad student. She’s into Human Rights, Politics and speaking Spanish. She feels generally inspired by education these days. She lives in a quiet little house, at the end of a quiet street, in the quiet of downtown Santa Fe. She usually puts on comfortable clothes/sweatpants around 5 p.m., makes a drink around 6, and writes in her journal or watches something on the internet. She stays home almost every night, with the exception of going to dinner once a week or so. She watches a lot of movies on the couch, glass of wine nearby. She’s endlessly nostalgic for the past and thinks about moving back to California, if only to be closer to her friends from “home.” She enjoys convenience — her car parked right outside her house; a washer and dryer (that doesn’t require quarters) on site; the library a short walk away. She wants to travel. She wants to visit places like Italy, Spain, Honduras, Amsterdam, Brazil and Ecuador. She saves her money diligently.
the a.r.w. #2 wants to move to New York City and work at some prestigious company — first it was the New York Times, then it was Rolling Stone, now it’s Amnesty International. She’s willing to live in a very small apartment that she cannot afford. She’s willing to not have easy access to a washer and dryer. She’s willing to let go of the peace and quiet she has appreciated in the desert. She’s willing to spend an obscene amount of money on this adventurous lifestyle — fancy restaurants, bars, clubs, dress clothes and high heels. She wants to walk home, late at night, among the dirty Manhattan (or, more realistically, Brooklyn) streets. She wants to moonlight as a DJ, spinning great records at loud, bright clubs with packed, sweaty dance floors. She blasts The Knife (thank you, Miss Bovary) in her headphones and takes frequent dance breaks while working her desk job (when no one is looking).
The two versions of myself are irreconcilable. I cannot be both the comfortable “Homebody” and the Manhattan “Party Girl.” This isn’t Sex and the City. This isn’t some MTV reality show. I’ve lived in cities before: Santiago, Chile for one year; Oakland, California for a few months. I wasn’t particularly fond of them. I like the silence of the desert. I like always having a parking spot outside my house. I like having a savings account that actually has money in it. I like riding my bike leisurely during the spring and summer. I like driving no more than ten minutes to a hiking spot. I like my personal space.
Why is it that, as soon as I begin graduate school and commit myself, with great passion, to a Master’s degree, I suddenly find my daydreams inundated with New York City?
…*bam*, you remember a snippet from a dream.
I just realized…
Last night, I was in Santa Cruz.
On campus, at UCSC.
Walking through the moist trees.
Crossing the Cowell College parking lot
to the Stevenson College parking lot.
I was headed to the coffeehouse.
I was happy and safe.
I actually dream about being there again quite often. I have to just give in – I left too soon, too abruptly. I wasn’t ready. Eventually, I’ll need to go back. And it will be wonderful.
I was in Chile, back in Santiago. I could feel it in the air.
But we were sitting at the Coyote Cantina (one of my favorite Santa Fe “bars” because it’s on a rooftop and open-air). I was with friends.
I realized, suddenly, that I had to get to work. So I rushed to catch a Micro. I remember saying “micro,” the Chilean slang for their public buses — giant, monstrous evil diesel machines that blow black death smoke from their engines. Drivers wield them through the high-speed, congested streets, occasionally hitting pedestrians. They murder handfuls of people every year. I said the word “micro” like it was normal — we were in Santiago. But we were speaking English.
When I got to work, it was the Italian restaurant I worked at for two years when I first moved to Santa Fe. It was that restaurant, but it looked like a typical Chilean restaurant, with menus written in Spanish. I apologized to the owner for being late, but we spoke only in English.
I put on my apron and approached a table, nervously, awkwardly. I attempted to interact in puro español. It felt like my tongue was tied and I had forgotten almost every word.
Ironic, isn’t it? All I want is to dream in Spanish. And yet, when I finally do, I only speak one Spanish word the entire time.
In my dream, last night, I had returned to college. I wandered around a foreign campus, lost and bewildered. I asked for directions. I walked past classes, in session with students ferociously note-taking. I’m pretty sure that Miranda Bailey, a character on Grey’s Anatomy (of course), was in my dream. She was instructing me to take some lab results somewhere, but I just got lost. I’m not sure how lab results and college fit together – I certainly was not in med school.
But when I woke, and began to sip my morning cup of coffee, I felt satiated.
