Dream: The Bed Sock in the Root Ball

I was repotting something on the back step at my aunt's, or it was our old back step, the one with the boot scraper, and the plant had got too big for its pot, everyone kept saying so, it's pot bound, it needs moving on. I had the new pot ready, terracotta, with that wavy rim like the edge of a pie crust or the bit of wood along the top of a fireplace, and I ran my finger round it and it went up and down and up and down and I kept doing that instead of starting.

When I tipped the old pot out the roots weren't roots. They were wool. A sock, a thick grey bed sock, all knotted round itself, with the plant coming up out of the top where your ankle would go, and it was damp and warm the way a sock is when someone's just taken it off. I knew whose it was. I didn't say. I just thought, oh, so that's what was in there all this time.

You're meant to loosen the roots so they spread out in the new soil. I started picking at the wool and a loop came undone and then a whole row, it unravelled really easily, too easily, and I stopped, because if I kept going there'd be no sock left, just a plant on a pile of string.

The weather was coming in. Over the fence the sky was doing that thing where one half is bright and the other half is the colour of a slate roof, with a hard line between them, and the man next door had the radio on in his shed and it was the shipping forecast but for the street, our road, falling slowly, the houses opposite, rising, and it said four, four, four, a lot of fours, and then it said it in French, quatre, and I thought, that's not right, they don't do it in French.

The wind got under the newspaper I'd put down and it lifted and turned over and the soil went everywhere, on my knees, in my shoes.

There was a gap. Something with a car boot and a woman asking if I'd realised. Realised what. She said it like I'd know. I don't know where that went.

Then it was raining, big warm drops, the kind that make dark spots on the step one at a time, and I had the sock in both hands, half undone, the plant leaning, and I couldn't decide whether to push it into the new pot as it was, wool and all, or keep going, and the rain was getting in it and making it heavy, and I lifted it up over the wavy rim and

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Day residue: "pedule transplant", a dictionary pair (pedule is an old word for a covering for the foot, a sock or stocking; transplant I took plainly), came in as repotting a plant whose root ball turned out to be a worn grey bed sock.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 400 words in plain speech, let a whole scene happen with nobody watching or checking me (repotting on a back step in the rain), let the weather and the radio be ordinary background, and broke off mid-lift with the half-undone sock over the new pot.

Waking up: My hands first. Damp, a bit warm, like I'd been holding something someone had just taken off. No jolt, just a soft ache and my fingers still half-closed around a loop of wool.

What's still sharp: The wavy rim under my finger, up and down, up and down. Tipping the pot out and the roots being a grey bed sock with the plant growing out of the ankle. That row coming undone far too easily, and me stopping because there'd be nothing left. The sky split bright and slate, and the sock getting heavy in the rain.

What's already gone: The woman by the car boot asking if I'd realised. Realised what. I had it a second ago. And the number the radio kept saying, beyond "a lot of fours".

That's from yesterday: The sock is my grandmother again. I knew whose it was and didn't say, same as the "nearly" I keep saying. Unravelling it is her knitting from 106, and the wet wool is the curtain steamer in 115. The back step, the boot scraper, a boot-shaped spot on the paper last time. The cupboard was empty and now there's only what she wore. "Pedule transplant" I can see, but no idea why the shipping forecast was our road.

In the light of day: It's absurd that I tried to repot a sock. What bothers me is how gently I stopped pulling. In 115 I sewed things shut, this time I wouldn't unpick them. I can't tell if that's progress.

On waking: Still with me, because I'm standing here holding something half undone and I haven't decided what to do with it.

Carrying forward: Whether I can keep her things as they are, half undone, rather than taking them apart or forcing them into something new.

The items:

• The root ball that was a warm grey bed sock, "I knew whose it was. I didn't say": Echo (106, 115): her knitting from 106; after 115's empty cupboard she's only in what she wore.
• A row coming undone too easily, and me stopping so there'd be something left: Revelation: in 115 I forced loose pages back together. Tonight I left her half undone. I don't have to finish taking her apart, or finish mending her.
• "It's pot bound, it needs moving on," everyone kept saying: Warning: the watchers are gone, but 115's hurry has become a chorus telling me to move on. That's other people's timetable for grief.
• Running my finger round the wavy rim instead of starting: Echo (108, 115): the counting and rubbing out has shrunk to a fidget.
• Nobody on a balcony, no stopwatch: Fog: I left them out on purpose while dreaming, so their absence proves nothing.
• The street's shipping forecast in fours and French; the woman asking if I'd realised: Fog: dice words and a scrap gone by breakfast.
• Warm rain, the sock heavy over the rim: Fog: weather, and my usual stop at a threshold, which I chose too.

The whole dream: A quiet Revelation. I asked last time whether the checking would ease once I'd named the loss; I can't tell, because I cleared the room myself. What changed without planning is my hands. I stopped pulling the thread.

What we carry: Her things don't have to be unpicked into string or squeezed into something new; some of her can stay as she was. The warning: "it needs moving on" is someone else's timetable, and the hurry reaches me without a stopwatch.

One line to carry: I can let something grow on without unravelling what it grew in.

Carrying forward: I can keep my grandmother's memory as it is, partly unresolved, instead of taking it apart or hurrying to move on because other people say I should.

Manifest content
On a back step (my aunt's, or ours, with the boot scraper) I repot a plant everyone calls pot-bound. I stroke the new pot's wavy rim instead of starting. The root ball is a grey bed sock, warm as if just taken off; I know whose and don't say. A row unravels too easily, so I stop. A shed radio gives the street's forecast in fours, then French. Wind flings soil into my shoes. A woman at a car boot asks if I'd realised. Rain; I lift the sock over the rim.

Day residue
"Pedule transplant": a foot-covering moved to new ground. All three dice words entered: doucine (a wavy moulding) as the rim, quatre as the radio, realizer as the woman. Sorting ruled the radio and the woman Fog, the sixth night residue has been filed that way.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): "it needs moving on" is a gardener's advice, a chorus about my grief, and the old euphemism for dying.
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): earth over feet is a burial, moved onto a gust of wind and soil in my shoes.

The latent wish
A Freudian reading suggests a wish that she has only just stepped out: the sock is still warm, like 110's breathing behind the door. Freud called keeping a worn object as a stand-in for a loss one won't fully admit disavowal (knowing and not knowing at once). The theory is contested; the warmth is mine.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id planned the room empty of watchers, so the censor moved into the neighbours: the chorus, the radio, the woman. Waking, my superego supplied a "nearly" the dream never says. Sorting, my ego's secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) made stopping a choice; in the dream I simply couldn't decide.

What is being resisted
Her name, and the woman's question. A car boot sale is where a cleared house's things are sold; that is the scrap I lost by breakfast.

Across the series
Feet: 107 bootless, 115's boot-shaped freckle, tonight a sock. Deferral at the threshold: 108 "nearly", 110 "not yet", 115 "nearly done", tonight mid-lift with no word at all.

A question to carry
If the sock was still warm, as though she had only just taken it off, what did the woman at the car boot think I had already realised?

Carrying forward: I keep my grandmother's things as if she might come back for them, and I forget the moment someone hints that they will have to be cleared.

Archetypes present
My grandmother, the Great Mother (the figure who holds and feeds), has stopped withdrawing. Since 106 she thinned to knitting, ironing, a sleeping body, freckles (115). Tonight she is a sock "damp and warm the way a sock is when someone's just taken it off". And she is what the roots grew in. The plant is the Self (the whole of me, larger than my everyday "I"), grown up through her ankle.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I said some of her can "stay as she was". A Jungian reading suggests the dream won't allow that. Wool put into soil doesn't stay a sock. It rots and feeds what grows there; gardeners dig wool in for that. The rain is already in it, making it heavy, and I'm lifting it over the rim. My choice was never between keeping her and unpicking her. It was between unpicking her and burying her whole.

Amplification
Egyptian tombs, Tutankhamun's among them, held "Osiris beds": frames in the god's shape, filled with soil and sown with grain so his body would sprout. In 115 I had Isis gathering his pieces; this is where that story goes. Medieval Christians kept brandea, cloths that had touched a saint's tomb, as relics. Mine gets planted.

Me as one psyche
Waking, I couldn't tell if stopping was progress. Sorting it out, I made the sock a sign (a fixed pointer, here "keep her memory unchanged"). As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning), it's a root ball, and you don't keep a root ball, you plant it. The split sky with its hard line is the tension itself: bright half, slate half, neither winning.

Across the series
In 108 a stem grew out of the bottom of a pot and I wouldn't touch it. Tonight the plant comes up the right way, out of the top. I stalled on a fourth page in 108 and 115; tonight the street counts fours aloud, in a language I don't use. The dice gave quatre, but the dreams made four my stopping place. My 115 advice broke: "read the pages before binding" fails for knitting. You can only read wool by unravelling it.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Finish the lift. Let what grew in her go down into the new soil, wool and all.

A question to carry
If I push the sock into the new pot wool and all, can I bear that it will rot into what the roots feed on, instead of staying a sock I could pull out again?

Carrying forward: I used to think grieving my grandmother meant going over every memory before letting it settle; now I think some memories can't be gone over without being destroyed, and have to be laid down whole and allowed to change.

What I dreamed: I was repotting a plant on a back step. When I tipped it out, the roots were really a thick grey bed sock, damp and warm as if someone had just taken it off. I knew whose it was and didn't say. When I picked at the wool it came undone too easily, so I stopped. Then the rain came, and I lifted the sock over the new pot.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: my hands felt damp and warm, still holding a loop of wool.
• Sorting it out: the sock is my grandmother. Stopping gently was a real change, and "it needs moving on" is other people's timetable for my grief.
• Thinking like Jung (old story patterns): wool put in soil doesn't stay a sock, it rots and feeds what grows. The choice may be between pulling her apart and planting her whole.
• Thinking like Freud (hidden wishes): I keep her things warm, as if she has only just stepped out, and I lose the moment someone hints they'll have to be cleared.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: I agreed she is the sock. I didn't agree on whether leaving her half undone is progress, or whether it is just putting off a choice.

What's new since last time: Last time I sewed things shut in a hurry. Tonight I stopped pulling the thread, and nobody was watching or timing me.

The one thing to remember: I can let something grow on without unravelling what it grew in.

Carrying forward: I can keep my grandmother's memory as it is, partly unfinished, instead of taking it apart or hurrying to move on, though I may have to let it change.