Belonging

Last night I dreamt that I had moved to a small rental apartment in Washington Heights. Not only had I moved, I'd moved in with my mother, and had enrolled at the local elementary school. To make money, I had volunteered my services as a baby sitter, and was transporting children to the school every morning via subway. In the dream I found myself walking happily downtown from Harlem to the Upper West Side, and suddenly realized I was on 84th Street and was very late for school. I ran and collected the little boy I had to take with me, and we got on the train.

When the train stopped at 148th Street we got off, but something terrible had happened at the station. A giant monument was being built, and the construction workers hadn't yet built an exit from the station, and told us we wouldn't be able to leave until they had. What I was most worried about was that we would be late.

A little while later I was downstairs in a fancy social club in a large stone building downtown somewhere. Edith Wharton's characters would have been very happy there. I went up to the hostess in the lobby, who seemed to know me and looked just like the receptionist at my first job out of college.

"Are they up there?" I asked her.

"Yes they are!" She smiled brightly, almost conspiratorially. "Go on up!" I started walking up the stairs. I could hear raucous laughter and music coming from a room. I kept thinking about who would be up there, and I couldn't remember. Halfway up the stairs I turned around and headed back down.

"Please don't tell them I came," I begged the hostess. "Please don't."

She promised me she wouldn't.