Dream: The Pawn Got Across While She Slept

I was getting my nails done in the launderette on the corner, the one that shut, except it was open and the machines were going and the woman doing my nails had set up on top of a dryer, so the little table was warm and kept shuddering. She was so tired. Not rude, just tired, her eyes kept closing while she filed, and every time they closed she filed slower, and I didn't say anything because I didn't want to wake her.

There was a chessboard next to the bowl of soapy water, hardly any pieces left, just two kings and one of my pawns, a white one, and she said we had to finish it before she could do the top coat. I said I don't really play. She said nobody plays this bit, you just walk. So I moved my king one square and she moved hers one square and that was all it was, the two of them shuffling round each other, and it went on and on.

My hands were in the water and when I took them out they were somebody else's. Older. Thin skin, the knuckles big, the brown spots. I knew they were mine now, and I wasn't upset, I was just so tired too, all of a sudden, like it came up out of the dryer into my arms, the kind of tired where your head goes heavy and you could cry about a spoon.

She said do you want them square or round. I said however you'd do your own. She held up her hand and her nails were bitten right down, red at the edges, and she laughed and so did I, and that was the best bit, I think, laughing with a stranger who was falling asleep.

Then someone wanted the back door open because of the heat. It had one of those little catches, a snib, and it was painted over so many times it wouldn't slide. I was trying to push it with the side of my thumb so I didn't spoil the polish, and the polish wasn't even on yet. A man in the queue for the machines said not like that, you're doing it vulgarwise, and I didn't know what it meant but I felt told off.

Then I was back in the chair and my pawn had got to the far side on its own while I wasn't looking. She said you can have anything you like for it now. I looked at the board. I could have had a queen. I asked if I could have my own hands back instead, and she was asleep, properly, with the file still in her fingers, and the dryer stopped, and in the quiet I picked up the little brush myself and started on her

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Day residue: "weary manicure", a dictionary pair, came in as a woman too tired to stay awake doing my nails on top of a launderette dryer; "unsnib" and "vulgarwise" surfaced as a painted-over door catch and a stranger's telling-off, and the chess endgame as two kings walking round each other.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 450 words in plain speech, let tiredness and a laugh with a stranger be the strongest things instead of anger or grief, let old spotted hands turn up as my own without anyone naming whose, and broke off on a different word, while I started doing someone else's nails.

Waking up: Heavy. Not scared, just tired in the arms, like the dryer's warmth came up through the sheets. I lay there looking at my hands before I got up, which I never do. No jolt at all, and after 181's hot jaw it's almost a relief.

What's still sharp: The little table shuddering on top of the dryer. Her eyes closing and the file going slower each time. Taking my hands out of the water and they were old, spotted, big in the knuckle, and I wasn't upset. Her bitten red nails and the two of us laughing. Picking up the brush myself at the end.

What's already gone: The man in the queue and what "vulgarwise" was supposed to mean, only that I'd been told off. What I'd have had for the pawn besides the queen. The word I started painting on her. It stopped before it finished.

That's from yesterday: The two words were the tired woman and the painted-over catch, so that's easy. The old hands I recognise: she's in them, my grandmother, though nobody said so. She was missing all through 181 and I think she's turned up in my own skin. The door I couldn't push open is 110's stuck door again, and the tight lid from 181, only I stopped pressing this time. The chess I have no idea about. I don't play.

In the light of day: It's ridiculous that I accepted a launderette that shut years ago. But I'm oddly calm. Nobody was laughing at the gate. A stranger fell asleep and I looked after her.

On waking: Still with me, because I keep looking at my hands and the tiredness is mine, not the dream's.

Carrying forward: Whether I can look after someone who is worn out the way I'd want to be looked after, now I am tired too.

The items:

• Taking my hands out of the water and they were old, spotted, big in the knuckle, and mine: Revelation: I didn't plan this; her freckled marks from 115 have moved onto my own skin, and I wasn't upset. She isn't somewhere to reach any more. She's in me.
• Laughing with the tired woman over her bitten nails: Revelation: last night's laughter at the gate (181) became laughter with someone, and it was the best bit.
• Picking up the brush myself while she slept: Echo (110): caring for someone worn out again, but this time with no stopwatch. I chose the scene while dreaming, so it counts for less than the hands.
• The painted-over snib, pushing it with my thumb: Echo (110, 181): the stuck door and the lid again, my thumb again. But I gave up pressing.
• The pawn crossing on its own, and asking for my hands back instead of a queen: Warning: offered anything, I asked to undo it, and nobody was awake to say yes. That's 115's sewing-back in a new shape.
• The man in the queue saying "vulgarwise": Fog: a dice word, gone by breakfast. What matters is that the crowd of watchers shrank to one man I'd forgotten by morning.
• Two kings walking round each other; the launderette that shut: Fog: dice chess and old furniture.

The whole dream: A Revelation. For three nights I said the outside voices were getting worse; tonight they went almost quiet without my shutting anything, so I was wrong to expect them to keep escalating. The anger is gone, and what's left is tiredness that feels like mine.

What we carry: Her hands are my hands now, and that can be calm rather than frightening. The warning: given a choice, I still reach for having things back as they were.

One line to carry: She's in my hands now, so use them to look after someone tired.

Carrying forward: I've started to feel my grandmother living on in me rather than lost, and I need to watch my wish to have everything back the way it was.

Manifest content
In the launderette that shut, a woman too tired to stay awake files my nails on a shuddering dryer. We must finish a chess endgame first: two kings walking round each other. My hands come out of the water old and spotted, and mine. A painted-over catch won't slide; a man says I'm doing it "vulgarwise". My pawn crosses while I'm not looking. Offered anything, I ask for my own hands back. She falls properly asleep, the dryer stops, and I start on her nails.

Day residue
"Weary manicure" became her. Unsnib (to slide back a catch) became the snib, vulgarwise the telling-off; wunsome I can't find. I ruled the chess Fog, the eighth night running for residue. But the chess carried the plot.

The dream-work
Condensation (ideas fused into one image): the snib is painted shut by coats, like polish; I guard a polish "not even on yet". Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): grief goes onto a spoon, "you could cry about a spoon", and 181's rage onto one man in a queue, aimed at me now.

The latent wish
In that endgame you shuffle kings so the pawn can cross and become a queen. A Freudian reading suggests a wish to stall so succession happens without me choosing it. Freud thought we sometimes keep the dead by taking on their traits (identification; the idea is contested). Her hands became mine, and I was offered her crown.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id stalled: "nobody plays this bit, you just walk". Waking, my superego found her in the hands and called the launderette "ridiculous". Sorting it out, my ego's secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) made the sleeping woman a task: look after someone tired.

What is being resisted
"Asleep, properly", then the machine stops and it goes quiet. Doing a still woman's nails is also the last care given to a body. And the slip: waking, I said I'd started painting "a word" on her. The dream stops at "her".

Across the series
Deferral at a threshold (108 "nearly", 110 "not yet", 181 thumbs on a lid) is now the king-walk, and the threshold gets crossed "on its own", as acts did "without me" in 104-106. 19 was chess triangulation, also stalling. Thumbs: 115 the needle, 181 a lid, tonight the snib. My v23 question (would the anger find her, or a culprit?) got neither: no culprit, and the anger went into tiredness.

A question to carry
When the pawn got across while I wasn't looking, was asking for my own hands back a refusal of her place, or of the fact that it's mine now?

Carrying forward: Part of me would rather stall until I become like my grandmother without choosing it than admit I am taking her place.

Archetypes present
The old spotted hands are the Wise Old Woman (the elder who carries what a life has learned), no longer met but worn. The tired manicurist is my grandmother's other face: the carer who is herself worn down, nails bitten, falling asleep at work.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I read the brush as "look after someone tired". A Jungian reading suggests the dream supplies something heavier. A woman whose eyes keep closing, whom I don't want to wake, ends up "asleep, properly", the dryer stops, the room goes quiet, and I start tending her hands. That is the order of a deathbed, then a laying-out.

Amplification
In Jewish tahara, the washing of the dead, the hands are cleaned and the nails seen to before burial. In the Rosarium philosophorum, a 16th-century alchemical text, the joined pair dies and is then washed (ablutio) before the soul comes back.

Me as one psyche
Waking and sorting it out, I stayed with the hands and the wish to undo. As a sign (a pointer to something known) the pawn is my wish to undo things. As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning) it crossed "on its own while I wasn't looking": the change happened without my effort, and only the person who could reverse it was asleep.

Across the series
In 19 a chess delay, triangulation, was the winning move. Tonight two kings shuffle, "nobody plays this bit, you just walk", and the pawn arrives anyway. Thumbs: a needle in one (115), both on a lid (181), tonight one side of a thumb on a painted-over snib, and I let go. My seed asked whether she would return and whether anyone told the bees. She returned as my skin. Nobody said anything aloud, but I picked up the brush. The anger didn't get said at full size; it simply wasn't there. That half-meets my falsifier.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Keep the old hands and use them on her. Do the top coat instead of trading the queen for my youth.

A question to carry
If the tired woman fell asleep for good while I held her hand, was picking up the brush the way I finally attend to my grandmother's death, the telling I never did?

Carrying forward: I may be starting to do for my grandmother, in my own way, the last care I never got to give her, and I need to accept that the change in me can't be undone.

What I dreamed: I was getting my nails done in an old laundrette, on a warm, shaking dryer. The woman doing them was so tired that her eyes kept closing, and I didn't want to wake her. My hands came out of the water old and spotted, and I knew they were mine. In the end she fell fast asleep, and I picked up the brush and started on her nails.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: I felt heavy and tired, not scared, and I kept looking at my hands.
• Sorting it out: The old hands are my grandmother, now living in me. Last time's anger had simply gone.
• Thinking like Jung: Tending a sleeping woman's hands is like the care people give someone who has died. Maybe it's the goodbye I never got to do.
• Thinking like Freud: I may be putting things off so I can turn into her without ever choosing to take her place.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: We all agreed the hands were hers and the anger was gone. We disagreed about the end: it was either simple kindness to someone tired, or a goodbye.

What's new since last time: Last time I was furious and she was missing. Now the fury is quiet tiredness, and I laughed with a stranger instead of being laughed at.

The one thing to remember: My grandmother's hands are mine now, and I can use them to look after someone who is tired.

Carrying forward: Whether I can accept that I am becoming like my grandmother, and look after tired people the way I wish she had been looked after.