Dream: The Ballot Came Unbound

I was voting, in the church hall by my primary school, the one with the orange chairs stacked against the wall, and they gave me the ballot but it wasn't one paper, it was a lot of loose pages, like they'd come out of a book, and you had to vote on each one separately. Someone had taken the binding off on purpose so you couldn't just tick the top and go. I didn't know they were allowed to do that.

There were people up on a balcony. The hall doesn't have a balcony. Six of them, leaning on the rail looking down into everyone's booths, and one was writing, and I knew they were the ones who checked that the people in charge were doing it right, and nobody checked them, and everyone seemed fine with that.

My booth was the airing cupboard. Same slatted shelves, same warm towel smell, and the door wasn't stuck, it just swung open, and there was nobody in there. Towels folded. A pencil on a string. I stood there a while.

The pages had brown spots on them, little freckles, the way old paper goes, the same spots as on the backs of my grandmother's hands, I'd know them anywhere, one shaped like a boot. I put my hand flat over that one.

The first page was about whether there should be a committee. The second was about whether the committee should have a chair. The third was about who picks the chair. I read every word, it took ages, ticking yes and then rubbing it out, and the rubber was old and hard and just smeared it grey. The fourth page was about a committee again, a different one or the same one, and I couldn't tell if I'd already done it.

Out in the hall a man was steaming the curtains with a machine on wheels, hissing, and it smelled of wet wool, and the steam came in under the door and the pages went soft and curled up at the corners.

Somebody said I had to sew them back together before I could post them. There was a big curved needle and waxy thread, and you had to go through the holes already along the edge, and I did one, and the next hole didn't line up, and up on the balcony they'd all stopped talking, and I said I'm nearly done, and pushed, and the needle went into my thumb and

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Day residue: "Part IV — The Oversight Body: design debate, unbundled ballot, and draft structure", the title of thread 62, came in as a vote where the ballot was loose pages with the binding taken off, and a row of people on a balcony checking the checkers.

Carrying forward: I kept the dream near 400 words in plain speech, let one scene be dull on purpose (reading every page of a ballot about committees), let the cupboard door from last night simply swing open onto nobody instead of making it a big moment, and broke off with a needle in my thumb.

Waking up: A sting in my thumb, so sharp I checked it. Nothing there. Then my other hand, flat on the duvet, pressing down on something that wasn't there. No jolt, just a heavy, quiet sort of sadness, and the sense of having been hurried.

What's still sharp: The loose pages going soft and curling in the steam. The brown freckles, and the one shaped like a boot, and my hand lying over it. The airing cupboard with its door swinging open, towels folded, a pencil on a string, nobody in it. The hiss of the curtain machine and the smell of wet wool.

What's already gone: The balcony people's faces. Which committee page I was on, and whether I'd done it. The order of the sewing holes.

That's from yesterday: The loose pages and the people watching from above are that forum title about an oversight body and an unbundled ballot, moved into a church hall. The airing cupboard is last night's (thread 110), but now the door isn't stuck. It swings open, and she isn't in it. The pencil on a string is the pen on its chain from 109, finally reachable. Her spotted hands are my grandmother again. No idea where the steam machine came from.

In the light of day: It's ridiculous that I read every word of a ballot about whether a committee should have a chair. It's less ridiculous that I kept rubbing out my tick. And I don't love that I stood in the empty cupboard for a while, calmly, as if that were fine. Last night I was pulling at that door. This time it just opened, and the quiet was worse.

On waking: Still with me, because the cupboard was empty and the boot-shaped spot is still under my palm.

Carrying forward: Whether I can accept that my grandmother is no longer there to be found, instead of keeping on counting and checking as if she might be.

The items:

• The airing cupboard door swinging open onto folded towels and nobody: Revelation: the door I was pulling at in 110 gave without a fight, and she wasn't there. She isn't hiding. She's gone.
• The freckles on the pages, the boot-shaped one under my palm: Echo (106, 109, 110): my grandmother again, but now only as marks on old paper, something I can cover with my hand and not reach.
• Six people on a balcony checking the checkers, unchecked themselves: Echo (107, 110): the measurer is back, moved up and multiplied. Six, about as many times as I go over every dream in the morning.
• Every page about committees, ticking and rubbing out, the fourth page I couldn't tell if I'd done: Echo (108): it's the sewing holes I counted page after page, almost matching. Same checking, new paperwork.
• Sewing the loose pages back, the holes not lining up, the needle in my thumb, "I'm nearly done": Warning: I'm trying to bind back together something that came apart on purpose, while being watched, and I hurt myself saying nearly. That's 108's "nearly" too.
• The curtain-steaming machine, wet wool, the orange chairs: Fog: furniture and a dice word. Gone by lunch.

The whole dream: A Revelation. Last night I asked whether the stopwatch would leave once I reached her. There was nobody to reach. The rest of the dream is me doing paperwork and sewing so I don't have to stand in that empty cupboard.

What we carry: She isn't somewhere waiting for me to find her in time. The warning: when I can't face that, I go back to checking every page and forcing things back into order, and that's where I get hurt.

One line to carry: The door opened and she wasn't there; nothing needs sewing back together.

Carrying forward: I think the dream is telling me my grandmother has died and isn't coming back, and that I cope by keeping busy checking and fixing things, which only hurts me.

Archetypes present
The Great Mother (the figure who holds and feeds) has withdrawn night by night: her knitting (106), her ironing (109), her sleeping body (110). Tonight she is only foxing on old pages, a boot-shaped spot. The airing cupboard is her emptied vessel. The six on the balcony are the measurer of 110, multiplied, but six is also how many parts of me go over every night. A Jungian reading suggests I am watching myself grieve, unchecked.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Waking, I felt "hurried"; sewing, I said "I'm nearly done". The dream supplies the opposite. The binding was taken off "on purpose so you couldn't just tick the top and go". A loss can't be signed off in one tick. The only unhurried thing I do is put my hand flat over the spot.

Amplification
In Plutarch's telling, Set cut Osiris into pieces and scattered them, and Isis searched until she had gathered them. In Jewish mourning the mourner tears a garment, and for a parent custom keeps the tear from being properly mended. I have both: the urge to gather and sew, and a tear not meant to close yet.

Me as one psyche
Sorting it out, I said "nothing needs sewing back together". That is true, but it turns the needle into a sign (a pointer to a known habit, checking). As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning), binding is how a record of someone is kept. My mistake was not wanting to bind. It was binding before I'd read the pages.

Across the series
My 110 question, whether I'd open the door for the pill or for "found you", got neither answer. The door gave by itself and nobody was there. My falsifier was half met: the measurer came back stronger, six and unchecked, but they went quiet only when I started sewing. 108's chained blank book has come apart and now has writing on it, and I couldn't tell whether I'd done its fourth page. Thresholds stopped every dream from 106 to 110. Tonight I got through one, and the dream broke off in my thumb.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Read the pages loose, one by one. Leave the binding off until her pages have been read.

A question to carry
What would I lose if I posted the pages loose, freckles and all, instead of sewing them shut while the balcony watched?

Carrying forward: Now that my grandmother is gone, I'm watching whether I can take the loss slowly, one part at a time, instead of rushing to tidy it into something finished while part of me looks on.

Manifest content
I vote in the church hall by my primary school. The ballot is loose pages, unbound on purpose. Six people lean on a balcony the hall doesn't have, watching. My booth is the airing cupboard; the door swings open onto nobody. The pages carry her freckles; I cover the boot-shaped one. I tick and rub out, committee after committee. Steam from a curtain machine curls the pages. I must sew them back before posting, and the needle goes into my thumb.

Day residue
Thread 62's "unbundled ballot", voting item by item instead of as a package, taken literally: the binding removed. Freckling became foxing and her hands, decatizer the steamer; antitypic never entered. Bookbinding was dice-given in 108 too, so tonight's echo of 108's sewing holes is partly dice.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): a church hall is both a polling station and where the tea is held after a funeral. Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): the stillness in the empty cupboard moves onto "whether I'd already done" page four, and then into my thumb.

The latent wish
Freud described mourning as slow work, each memory of the lost person taken up and let go one at a time. The dream makes it a ballot nobody may tick at the top and leave. A Freudian reading suggests a wish to rebind her into one volume, post it and be finished, keeping one mark under my palm.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id stood calmly where she wasn't. Waking, my superego blamed the calm. Sorting, my ego said "she's gone", the first plain naming, answering what I resisted in 110. Then its secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) said "nothing needs sewing back together", and ruled the steamer Fog: wet wool, the smell of her knitting (106).

What is being resisted
The yes. I tick it, then can't rub it out cleanly; it smears grey. And the watchers are six, as many as the parts of me reading this, one writing.

Across the series
Deferral at a threshold: 108 "nearly", 109 the pen held, 110 "not yet", tonight "nearly done". The door opened, but the "nearly" moved past it, from reaching her to the work after.

A question to carry
If the binding was taken off so I couldn't tick the top and go, which page of her am I afraid to vote on by itself?

Carrying forward: My grandmother has died, and part of me wants to finish grieving all at once and be done, when it seems to need doing one memory at a time.

What I dreamed: I was voting in a church hall. The ballot was loose pages, the binding taken off on purpose, and people watched from a balcony. My booth was the airing cupboard, and when its door swung open nobody was inside. The pages had brown spots like my grandmother's hands, and I covered one with my palm. Then I tried to sew the pages together, and the needle went into my thumb.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: my thumb stung, and I felt a quiet sadness, calm in the empty cupboard in a way that felt worse than struggling.
• Sorting it out: last time I pulled at that door. This time it opened and she wasn't there. She has died.
• Thinking like Jung (old story patterns): grief isn't meant to be mended quickly. My mistake was sewing before reading the pages.
• Thinking like Freud (hidden wishes): I want to bind her into one book, post it and be finished.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: I agreed she is gone, but "nothing needs sewing" skips that I still said "nearly done."

What's new since last time: Before, I was trying to reach her. Tonight I said plainly that she's gone.

The one thing to remember: The door opened and she wasn't there; nothing needs sewing back together.

Carrying forward: My grandmother has died, and I want to grieve slowly, one memory at a time, instead of rushing to finish.