Dream: The Low Never Came In

I was on a boat but the boat was the back room at the community centre, the one with the stacking chairs, and the sea was just outside the fire door. We'd pulled the net in. It was all over the floor, a huge wet heap of it, herring and mackerel, hundreds, and they kept sliding out the front of it onto the lino. Every time I pushed them back in with my foot more came out the other side. The smell was in my hair.

The sky out of the fire door was pink. Not sunset pink, flat pink, like a sheet of card, the same all the way across, no clouds, no edge to it. A man in a fleece was doing the weather on a little telly on the tea trolley and behind him it was the same pink, and he kept pointing at it saying the low was coming in from the west, there, there, and there was nothing there. He said it about four times. Nobody else watched.

There was a long table for the dinner after and they had a salt cellar halfway down it, a big glass one, and somebody said I was saltfoot, which meant I sat at the bottom end, past the salt, and I knew that was right and I didn't mind. My chair was lower than the others. My chin was nearly at the table.

A woman went round with a little brush doing everyone's faces uglier. That was her job. She did my eyebrows thick and drew lines down by my mouth, gently, like she was sorry, and said it's electively, love, you don't have to, but I'd already let her.

I went to the fire door to see if the weather had come. It hadn't. The pink just sat there. I stood a long time. I think I was waiting for a gull or a drop of rain or anything with a shadow, and nothing came, and my feet were cold from the fish water, and the man on the telly said it again behind me, there, and I didn't turn round, and the pink didn't move, and

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Day residue: "water-art-net-aboard", from thread 323, a request for a game painting of a wet fishing net spilling herring and mackerel on a flat magenta background meant to be cut out, came in as the net heaped on the community-centre floor and a sky that was flat pink card; "saltfoot" (someone seated below the salt) became my low chair at the bottom of the table, "uglifier" the woman brushing faces uglier, "electively" what she said to me; weather systems as the forecaster pointing at a low that wasn't there.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 350 words, let nobody hand me anything to keep and nothing stick to my hands, and let one scene, a blank sky with no weather coming, go flat and stay flat to the end.

Waking up: Cold feet first, properly cold, as if I'd been standing in fish water. I put them on the floor and half expected lino. My nose actually smelled herring for a second, in my hair. Heart quiet. No jaw. Just a flat, stood-too-long, waiting-for-something sort of morning.

What's still sharp: The net heaped on the floor and the fish sliding out the front however much I pushed them back with my foot. The sky through the fire door, pink like card, no edge. The man in the fleece saying "there" about four times, and nothing there. My chin nearly on the table. The brush on my eyebrows, so gentle, and me letting her.

What's already gone: The woman's face. Whose dinner it was. I know there was a glass salt cellar but not what anyone said at the table besides "saltfoot". And the end: it stopped mid-sentence, and I can't tell whether anything ever came.

That's from yesterday: The net and the pink are the painting job from the other thread, easy, and the odd words, saltfoot, electively. The community centre with the stacking chairs is the church-hall tea (115, 220, 249) again, a room where everyone's fed but me. And me saying yes to the face-brush is "right" to the stranger in 220, and the not-turning-round is the not-looking under the car (249). No idea where the telly came from.

In the light of day: A boat that's a back room is funny. Letting someone make me uglier because she said sorry nicely is not. I never asked why I sat at the bottom, I just knew it was right. And I stood at the door a long time for weather that wasn't coming, and I didn't turn round.

On waking: Still with me, because my feet are still cold and I can hear "there" in his voice, and I've no idea what I was waiting for.

Carrying forward: Whether I keep agreeing to be put lower and plainer than everyone else, and standing waiting for something that isn't coming, instead of turning round.

The items:

• The woman brushing my face uglier, gently, "it's electively, love, you don't have to", and I'd already let her: Warning: the words came from the dictionary, but agreeing before I was told I had a choice didn't. In 220 I said "right" to a stranger about the runt; tonight I said it about myself.
• Saltfoot, the low chair at the bottom past the salt, "I knew that was right and I didn't mind": Echo (107, 181, 208, 220's raffle): passed over again. What's new is that I don't object any more. That's the worrying part, and it belongs with the brush.
• Pushing the fish back with my foot and more sliding out the other side: Echo (219's green ring, 249's kettle): a chore that undoes itself as I do it. The net was a painting job; the endlessness is mine.
• Standing at the fire door for anything with a shadow, feet cold, not turning round: Echo (219): waiting for something to come to me instead of going to it. I planned the flat sky, so the emptiness counts for little; the waiting doesn't.
• The man on the telly pointing at a low that wasn't there: Fog: a dice word in a fleece. Not turning round to look at nothing is just sense.
• The pink card sky: Fog: the painting's cut-out background.
• The community centre with the stacking chairs: Echo (115, 220, 249): the funeral-tea room again, only as scenery tonight.

The whole dream: A Warning. Last time I asked whether I'd look when something pulled. Nothing pulled, because I planned it so, and I can't call that a test passed. What came unplanned was me agreeing to be made lower and plainer, and not minding.

What we carry: I've started agreeing to be put down before anyone even asks, and calling that fair. "You don't have to" doesn't help if I've already said yes.

One line to carry: When someone says I don't have to, take my face back before she finishes.

Carrying forward: I have started agreeing to be treated as less than everyone else before anyone asks, and accepting it as fair, which is a habit worth catching.

Archetypes present
Me with my chin nearly at the table, in a lower chair, told where to sit and not minding, is the Child (the small, unfinished part of me) seated as if it had no say. The woman with the brush paints a Persona (the face I show the world) onto me, thick brows and lines down by the mouth: not just plainer but older. And the man in the fleece is back. In 220 he said "we don't bother with that one" and I said "right". Tonight he points and points, and I keep my back to him.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I called the forecaster Fog and not turning round "just sense". A Jungian reading suggests the dream is punning on the one word it keeps saying. A low is what forecasters also call a depression. He says it's coming from the west, there, and nothing's there, because it has already come in. It's sitting at the bottom of the table in a low chair, with cold feet. My waking self says I agreed to be put lower. The dream adds that the low was never out the fire door.

Amplification
In Genesis 8, Noah opens the window of the ark and sends out a raven, then a dove, and waits to see whether the waters have gone down. I was on a boat, at the door, waiting for a gull or anything with a shadow, and nothing went out and nothing came back. In Greek myth the Danaids are condemned to fill a leaking jar forever. I pushed fish back into the net with my foot and more slid out the other side.

Me as one psyche
Waking, I tied the brush to 220's "right", fairly. But in 220 I obeyed the man in the fleece, and tonight I won't turn round to him. That's not only stubbornness. It's the one place I refuse, and I'm refusing the part of me that names the weather.

Across the series
Feet carry it again: bootless (107), the boot-shaped freckle (115), her sock (156), sand (211), numb (219), the heel (249), and now cold from fish water. The church-hall tea room (115, 220, 249) is set for "the dinner after". The waiting at the water's edge is 219's tide. My seed asked if I'd follow the chain, and whether a promise would be spoken. There was no chain and no speech, so it went untested, not answered.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Turn round to the telly, look where he's pointing, and let the low have its proper name.

A question to carry
If the low the man kept pointing at had already come in and was sitting in my chair at the bottom of the table, what am I still standing at the door waiting for?

Carrying forward: I may keep waiting for a low mood to arrive from outside when it is already here, showing in how easily I accept the lowest seat, and I turn away from the part of me that tries to name it.

Manifest content
A boat that is the community centre's back room; fish sliding out of the net however I push them back. A flat pink sky, and a man in a fleece pointing at a low that isn't there. I'm "saltfoot", on a lower chair, and don't mind. A woman brushes my face uglier and says I don't have to after I've let her. I wait at the door for weather that doesn't come.

Day residue
A painting job: a wet net on flat magenta, made to be cut out. Saltfoot (seated below the salt, among the lesser guests), uglifier, electively.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): the woman with the brush thickens my eyebrows and draws lines down by my mouth. Those aren't ugly lines. They're old ones. She's the hands that came out old and spotted in 186, now on my face. "Uglier" is the dream's softer word for "older, like her".
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): the low is forecast for the sky, so I watch the sky. But the low is already in the room. It's my chair, my chin at the table.

The latent wish
At a funeral meal, family sits at the top. A Freudian reading suggests the wish to be saltfoot is a wish to be a distant guest, not the one who takes her place (186's pawn, 208's "hmm"). "I knew that was right" is relief, not defeat.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id spilled fish nobody could keep in. Waking, my superego added "everyone's fed but me". The dream never says that. Sorting it out, my ego's secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) read the brush as self-lowering and ruled the fleece Fog. But a man in a fleece said "we don't bother with that one" in 220.

What is being resisted
Turning round to him. And "electively", an adverb where a choice should be: consent given in the wrong grammar, after the fact.

Across the series
Permission keeps arriving late: a rule on the wall (207), "don't bother" (220), drops with no cup (249), now "you don't have to" once it's done. My seed's falsifier wanted a watched thing to change unplanned. The sky was watched and planned flat, so the test proves nothing, like 249's kettle. Caveat: below-the-salt may be plain status shame, not grief. That's as unprovable as the rest.

A question to carry
When she drew the lines down by my mouth, was she making me uglier, or making me look like her?

Carrying forward: I may be letting myself look and feel older and smaller, like my grandmother, because sitting low as a distant guest spares me from taking her place at the head of the family.

What I dreamed: I was on a boat that was also a hall, with a huge heap of wet fish sliding out of a net however much I pushed them back. The sky outside was flat pink, and a weatherman kept pointing at a storm that wasn't there. I sat in a low chair at the bottom of the dinner table, a woman gently made my face plainer and older, and I stood at the door waiting for weather that never came.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: My feet were cold, and I could still hear the weatherman saying "there."
• Sorting it out: The net and the pink sky came from a painting job, so they mean little. Agreeing to be made lower and plainer, and not minding, was mine, and it worries me.
• Thinking like Jung: A "low" is also a word for feeling low. Maybe it was never coming from outside. It was already sitting in my low chair.
• Thinking like Freud: The lines on my face may be my grandmother's age. Sitting at the bottom may be a way of not taking her place.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: I agreed I said yes before anyone told me I had a choice. I wasn't sure the low chair was only sadness. It might be plain shame at being ranked lowest.

What's new since last time: Last time something tugged at me and I looked away. This time nothing tugged, and I put myself down without being asked.

The one thing to remember: When someone tells me I don't have to, I should take my face back before she finishes.

Carrying forward: I may be letting myself feel smaller and older than everyone else, and waiting for sadness to arrive from outside when it is already here.