Dream: Don't Scruze the Tops

I was working nights at the bakery on the high street, the one with the yellow sign, except the ovens were in the front window so people going past could see, and nobody went past, it was three in the morning. My job was to watch the dough rise. That was all. Big plastic tubs of it on a trolley under tea towels and every so often I had to lift a corner and look. I lifted one, it was the same. I lifted the next, same. I lifted the first one again. There was a clock but it was the kind with no numbers on.

Each tub had a soft bit on top where the dough hadn't closed. Like on a baby's head, the bit you're told not to press, and you could see it going up and down, slow, breathing. Somebody had written on the wall in felt tip DON'T SCRUZE THE TOPS. I thought scruze was a real word. I still think it might be.

Outside a man was spraying the weather onto the side of a van. Not graffiti, the forecast, clouds and the little sun half behind and arrows for the wind, very neat with a stencil, and the air was full of it, blue mist coming in under the door, and it was tomorrow's weather so I tried not to breathe it in case I used it up.

A woman came in from the back with a little brass lamp on a tray and went round the trolley in circles, slowly, round and round in front of each tub, and I knew it was a thing you do, a blessing, I'd been to one at a friend's wedding and didn't know where to stand then either. She gave me the tray and I went round too. The flame kept leaning towards the door.

Then the tubs were much bigger and the towels didn't reach. The dough came up over the rims, warm, pale, smelling of beer, and the soft bits had all joined into one, and it was the top of someone's head, the hair gone thin, the way you could see her breathing there at the end, at the top, when she couldn't do anything else. I was so tired. I felt sad the way you do in a dream about bread. I didn't press it. I put the lamp on the floor and sat on the cold tiles next to it to wait, because somebody had to be there when it

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Day residue: "bregmate aerography", a dictionary pair (bregmate is to do with the bregma, the top of the skull where a baby's soft spot closes; aerography is describing the air, or airbrushing), came in as dough with a soft spot on top like a baby's head, and a man airbrushing the weather forecast onto a van.

Carrying forward: I kept it under 420 words in plain speech, let one scene stay flat and boring (lifting tea towels again and again), kept hands and lids out of it, and let the tiredness tip into sadness about her without any undoing.

Waking up: Slow and heavy, and my eyes were wet before I knew why. No jolt. I lay there with my hand flat on my own head for a second, which is a daft thing to do, and took it away.

What's still sharp: Lifting the tea towel and it being the same, over and over. The soft bit going up and down. The lamp flame leaning at the door. The dough coming over the rims, warm. Sitting on the cold tiles next to the lamp. And the end of it, her thin hair and the breathing, which I can still see.

What's already gone: What the blessing was for, and who the woman with the tray was. The sentence stopped, and I don't know what I was waiting for. I'm not sure I want to.

That's from yesterday: The two dictionary words, easy: a soft spot on a baby's head, and someone painting the weather on a van. "Scruze" I can't place. It still feels like a real word. The tiredness is 186's tiredness, and the tubs I wouldn't press are the lids from 181, except this time nobody asked me to press anything. The hands are 186 too, but tonight they were just holding a lamp. It's her at the end, the goodbye I never did.

In the light of day: A bakery with ovens in the window at 3am is ridiculous, and I never doubted it for a second. But I can't laugh it off. It was the first time she hasn't been angry, or missing, or in my hands. She was just there, breathing, and I sat with her.

On waking: Still with me, because I've been awake ten minutes and I'm still bracing not to press anything.

Carrying forward: Whether sitting quietly with someone dying, without fixing anything, is the goodbye I never got to do.

The items:

• The soft spots joining into the top of her head, thin hair, breathing there at the end: Revelation: she's been hiding (110), gone (115), absent (181) and in my hands (186); tonight she was simply there, dying, and I stayed. I set out to feel sad, so I discount that, but not the wet eyes I woke with.
• Sitting on the cold tiles "because somebody had to be there when it": Warning: I can sit with it now, but I stop one word short, and waking I said I'm not sure I want to know what I was waiting for. That's the "nearly" of 108 to 181.
• DON'T SCRUZE THE TOPS, and not pressing: Echo (115's needle, 181's lid, 186's snib): my thumbs again, but nobody asked and I didn't press. I kept hands out on purpose, so it counts for less.
• The woman circling with the lamp, handing me the tray, the flame leaning to the door: Echo (186's brush): the care gets handed to me and I carry on. The door's back, but only the flame leans at it.
• Waking with my hand flat on my own head: Echo (115): the palm I laid over her boot-shaped freckle, now on my own skull.
• Lifting tea towels again and again, the clock with no numbers: Fog: a flat scene I chose.
• Tomorrow's weather sprayed on a van; "scruze": Fog: dice words.

The whole dream: A Revelation. Last night I asked whether the tiredness would turn into grief and whether the wish to undo would ease. It turned, nothing got undone, and I sat on the floor and waited.

What we carry: I can be with her at the end without fixing anything. The warning: I still won't finish the sentence that says she died.

One line to carry: I stayed with her at the end; next, I can say the word.

Carrying forward: I can now sit with my grandmother's death without trying to fix or undo it, but I still stop short of saying plainly that she died.

Archetypes present
The Child (what is still to come) and the Wise Old Woman (the elder at the end of a life) are one image tonight: the soft spot on a baby's head, which closes in infancy, opens again as her thin hair at the end. The cots of 110, babies beside old men, have become a single head. The woman circling with the brass lamp is a psychopomp (the guide who sees someone across), and she hands me the tray.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Waking, I said I'm not sure I want to know what I was waiting for; sorting it out, I said next I can say the word. A Jungian reading suggests the dream supplies a rite, not a word. The flame leans towards the door. That is the telling: it shows which way she is going, before any sentence does.

Amplification
In arati, a Hindu rite, a lamp is waved in circles before what is held sacred; I did it round tubs of dough. In Tibetan Buddhist phowa practice the consciousness is meant to leave at death through the crown of the head, the old fontanelle. Bread itself: in 105 Aubrey's sin-eater took a loaf and a bowl of beer across the coffin. Tonight the dough smells of beer, and nobody is paid to sit with it.

Me as one psyche
Sorting it out, I ruled the tea towels and the numberless clock Fog, a flat scene I chose. As a sign (a pointer to something known) that is true. As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning) it is the checking from 108 and the stopwatch of 110 turned into a vigil: lifting a corner to see she is still breathing, time with no numbers to be judged against. Even chosen, I chose to keep watch.

Across the series
The nights are walking backwards towards the moment I missed: the empty cupboard after (115), the sock to be buried (156), the laying-out of 186, and tonight the deathbed itself. My 105 question asked what I'd owe if I carried the weight myself. Tonight I carried the lamp. And tomorrow's weather I wouldn't breathe in case I used it up: I'm still rationing what comes after her.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Stay on the tiles until the dough has finished rising, and let the next day's air in.

A question to carry
If the flame was already leaning towards the door, do I still need to finish the sentence, or was carrying the lamp round her the goodbye itself?

Carrying forward: My dreams seem to be bringing me back, night by night, to the moment of my grandmother's death that I missed, so that I can be there for it, and I'm watching whether being there matters more than saying out loud that she died.

Manifest content
On a bakery night shift I watch dough rise under tea towels, lifting corners by a clock with no numbers. Each tub has a soft breathing spot, and the wall says DON'T SCRUZE THE TOPS. A man stencils tomorrow's weather on a van and I try not to breathe it. A woman circles the tubs with a lamp and hands me the tray. The spots join into the top of her head, thin-haired, breathing at the end. I don't press. I sit on the cold tiles to wait "when it".

Day residue
"Bregmate aerography" gave the soft spot and the stencilled forecast. Arati (the Hindu rite of waving a lamp before what is honoured) gave the woman with the tray. Scruze is a real word, an old one for squeeze, so I was right in the dream. Sklate (Scots for slate) reached the cold tiles, if anywhere.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): a baby's soft spot and a dying woman's crown share one image, the first opening of a life and its last. Lifting a towel to check is also lifting a sheet from a face.
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): fear for her breath goes onto the street air. I don't breathe tomorrow's weather "in case I used it up", as if I could save breath for her.

The latent wish
A Freudian reading suggests a rule goes on the wall only where something wants to break it (a contested idea). After nights of exhaustion (186), part of me may wish it over. Beside it sits the plainer wish to have been there.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id let the dough spill warm and brought her back. Waking, my superego laid my hand flat on my own head, guarding the spot. Sorting it out, my ego wrote "nobody asked and I didn't press". The wall did ask. Secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) turned obeying a rule into a choice to stay.

What is being resisted
The pronoun. I wait "when it", not "when she". The sentence makes her an "it" exactly where she would stop breathing.

Across the series
In 110 I wanted to hear breathing behind the cupboard door; tonight I got it, and it was breathing at the end. Pressing has moved: thumb on a needle (115), both thumbs on a lid (181), a snib (186), now only a rule against pressing, with no thumbs at all. My v24 question got half an answer: she came as herself, and I took the tray, then put it down.

A question to carry
If someone had to write DON'T SCRUZE THE TOPS on the wall, which tired part of me needed telling, and was the "it" I waited for her last breath?

Carrying forward: Part of me, worn out, may have wanted my grandmother's dying to be over, and I can only stay with her in memory once I admit that without hating myself for it.

What I dreamed: I was working a night shift in a bakery, watching dough rise. Each tub had a soft spot on top, like the soft spot on a baby's head, and a sign said not to press it. A woman walked round the tubs with a little lamp, then handed me the tray. In the end the dough joined into the top of an old woman's head, breathing, and I sat on the cold floor to wait.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: My eyes were wet and I had my hand flat on my own head.
• Sorting it out: This was the first night she was just there, not angry, missing or in my hands. I stayed with her and didn't try to fix anything. I still stopped one word short of saying she died.
• Thinking like Jung: The lamp looked like an old ritual for seeing someone off. Carrying it round her may have been the goodbye itself.
• Thinking like Freud: The sign said not to press, so part of me must have wanted to. I was worn out, and some of me may have wished it was over.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: We all agreed I stayed with her. We split on whether I still need to say the word "died", or whether the lamp already said it.

What's new since last time: The tiredness has turned into sadness, and nothing got undone. The watchers who used to laugh at me are gone.

The one thing to remember: I stayed with her at the end, and next I can say the word.

Carrying forward: I can now sit quietly with the memory of my grandmother dying, but I still avoid saying plainly that she died, and part of me may have been tired enough to wish it over.