Dream: The Tray Got Thicker on the Stairs

I was carrying a tea tray up a staircase that kept going. Not a nice tray, the brown plastic kind with the cork bit in the middle, and on it a pot and two cups and one big mushroom, brown and folded over like a brain, sat on a doily where the cake should be. It was for upstairs. I didn't know who upstairs.

Every landing had a mirror with a tea towel over it, pegged on with clothes pegs. I wanted to lift one. On one landing the towel had slipped at the corner and I went past with my eyes shut, which is hard on stairs with a full tray.

The pot was too full. Every step a bit slopped onto the cork and the cork drank it and swelled, and the whole tray got thicker and heavier, it was rising, like dough, the edges going soft and puffy, and I had to hold it further and further out until my arms shook.

Somewhere in the house somebody was playing a long thin instrument laid flat on a table, plucking it, the same three notes, the kind of tune that's about to start properly and never does. It came through every wall at the same loudness. It didn't get nearer however high I went.

The clocks on the landings were all stopped, at different times. I remember thinking that's wrong, they're meant to all say the same.

At the top there was a door with a cardigan hung over the handle, the beige one with the leather buttons. I put the tray down on the carpet because I needed my hands, and it was so thick now it came up past my knee, and the mushroom had slid off into a cup.

I knocked. The tune stopped, properly stopped, for the first time. Nobody said come in. I stood with my knuckles still on the wood and my arms aching and the tray creaking behind me as it swelled, and I didn't knock again. I just waited there, and the tea went cold.

---

Day residue: "teaboard turbantop", a dictionary pair (teaboard, an old word for a tea tray; turbantop, the false morel, a brain-folded mushroom) came in as the cheap tray I carried upstairs with a brain-shaped mushroom where the cake should be; "grossen" (to thicken) became the tray swelling like dough as it soaked up spilt tea, and "langspiel" (a long Shetland zither) the thin instrument plucked flat on a table somewhere in the house; funeral customs surfaced as covered mirrors and stopped clocks on every landing.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 350 words, let nobody speak to me at all, and ended on a finished sentence (standing at a closed door, waiting) instead of breaking off mid-sentence again.

Waking up: My arms. Both of them, ache in the shoulders, held out in front of me like I'd been carrying something for an hour. I flexed my hands on the duvet before I'd opened my eyes. Heart quiet, no jaw. Just a heavy, held-breath sort of morning, and the strange silence where the tune stopped.

What's still sharp: The tray going soft and puffy like dough, the cork drinking the tea. The mushroom folded like a brain, then slid into a cup. The tea towel slipped at the corner of one mirror and me going past with my eyes shut. The beige cardigan with the leather buttons on the door handle. Knocking, and the three notes finally stopping.

What's already gone: Who was upstairs. Whether I ever knew. The mirrors I never lifted, so I can't say what was under any of them. How many landings.

That's from yesterday: The odd words are easy, the tray, the mushroom, the dough, the flat thin instrument. Covered mirrors and stopped clocks are the funeral, and the tea carried to someone is the church-hall tea again (115, 220, 249, 420). Going past with my eyes shut is not looking under the car (249). Standing at a door waiting for something that doesn't come is the fire door in 420. The cardigan feels like hers, but no idea where that came from tonight.

In the light of day: A tray that rises like dough is funny. Not lifting one single towel isn't. And I didn't knock again. I just stood there and let the tea go cold, and that felt like the polite thing to do.

On waking: Still with me, because my arms still ache from holding it out, and I'm still listening for the three notes.

Carrying forward: Whether I keep avoiding looking at what's hidden, and waiting politely at a closed door instead of knocking again.

The items:

• I knocked, once, and the three notes stopped properly for the first time: Revelation: in 219 and 420 I stood at a door or a tide waiting for something to come to me. Tonight I climbed to it and knocked, and something answered.
• Then I didn't knock again, waited, and let the tea go cold, "the polite thing": Warning: one knock, no answer, and I gave up and called it manners. That's 420's "I didn't mind" with better posture.
• Shutting my eyes past the one mirror whose towel had slipped: Warning: the covered mirrors are funeral custom, but the slipped corner was a chance to see, and I chose the harder way rather than look. That's 249's car again, at more cost.
• The beige cardigan with leather buttons on the handle: Revelation: it's not in the day's words and I didn't plan it. 249 asked whether the tie led to her or to nobody. The door had her cardigan on it.
• The tray soaking up the spills and swelling until my arms shook: Echo (219's ring, 249's kettle, 420's fish): the chore that grows from its own mess.
• Stopped clocks at different times; the brain-mushroom on the doily: Fog: funeral customs and a dice word.

The whole dream: A Warning, with a door half open. For the first time I went toward the thing instead of waiting at the edge, and it answered with silence where there had been noise. Then I stopped at one knock and let politeness do my waiting for me.

What we carry: Going to it works; I knocked and something changed. Giving up after one try, and calling that good manners, is the habit to catch. And I keep paying extra not to look.

One line to carry: The music stopped when I knocked; knock again.

Carrying forward: When I finally go to someone I've been avoiding thinking about and get no answer the first time, I tend to give up politely instead of trying again.

Archetypes present
The beige cardigan with the leather buttons, hung on the handle, is the Great Mother (the one who held and fed me) reduced to what she wore, and left at a threshold. The covered mirrors belong to the Persona (the face I show the world): in 420 a woman brushed mine older; tonight there is no face to see at all.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I called the swelling tray a chore growing from its own mess. A Jungian reading suggests it is older than that. It rose "like dough, the edges going soft and puffy". In 207 the dough rose until it was the top of her head, and I sat on the tiles to wait "because somebody had to be there". Tonight I'm carrying the dough upstairs to her, and it grows from what I spill. Waking, I called stopping at one knock polite. The dream supplies the weight: the offering gets heavier the longer it isn't handed over.

Amplification
Orpheus may climb out of the underworld with Eurydice only if he doesn't look back; he looks, and loses her. I kept my eyes shut past the slipped towel, as if not looking were the condition. In the Sumerian Descent of Inanna, she passes seven gates and leaves a garment at each. At my last door the garment was already there.

Me as one psyche
Sorting it out, I read the silence after the knock as no answer. But the tune was the one "about to start properly and never does", the same through every wall. When I knocked it stopped for the first time. Waiting in the house ended. That was a reply.

Across the series
Since 219 and 420 I've waited at an edge for something to come. Tonight I climbed. For the first time, my feet don't carry it (107, 115, 156, 211, 219, 249, 420); my arms do. The funeral tea has moved from the church hall (115, 220, 249, 420) to a private house, upstairs. My seed asked whether I'd turn round, whether the man in the fleece would return, whether the low would be named. No fleece, no turning. Untested again, and I'll stop asking.

Individuation: the task this dream sets
I've already put the tray down. Now, on the way back down, lift the towel that has slipped.

A question to carry
If the corner had already slipped on its own, whose face was I shutting my eyes against: hers, or mine, now drawn like hers?

Carrying forward: I may be avoiding seeing myself as someone in mourning who has started to look like her, and taking silence after I finally reach out as a refusal when it may be an answer.

Manifest content
I carry a swelling tea tray up endless stairs to someone unnamed. Every landing has a mirror under a pegged tea towel; one has slipped and I pass it with my eyes shut. A three-note tune never starts. Clocks stopped at different times. At the top, her cardigan hangs on the door handle. I knock once, the tune stops, nobody answers, and I wait while the tea goes cold.

Day residue
Teaboard, grossen and langspiel gave tray, swelling and zither; funeral custom the mirrors and clocks. Turbantop is the false morel: it looks like the real mushroom, but it's poisonous. It sits where the cake should be.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): the tray is 207's dough tubs under tea towels, swelling like dough, plus the funeral-tea trays (115, 220). In 207 I lifted every towel to check she was breathing. Tonight a towel lifts itself and I shut my eyes. The same act, reversed.
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): who is behind the door moves onto a cardigan on its handle, just as she was a warm sock in 156.

The latent wish
Carrying tea up to a bedroom is sickroom care, the "last care I never gave" (186). A Freudian reading suggests the wish was to have done it without having to see her. One knock, no answer: duty done, and I'm let off.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id loaded the tray. Waking, my superego called the waiting "the polite thing". Sorting it out, my ego wrote "something answered". That's secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense): what answered was silence. In a house of mourning the music stops when someone has died. My knock marked the moment.

What is being resisted
The clocks, ruled Fog. People stop the clocks at the hour of death, and mine disagree: 207's deathbed, 186's "asleep, properly". I won't settle on when. And the mirror: since 186 and 420 my face has been turning into hers.

Across the series
Thresholds again: 110's "not yet", 219's drawer, 420's fire door. My v30 falsifier half-fired. I followed the tie upstairs, and when I acted something changed. But I found her clothes, not her. Asleep, I planned for nobody to speak, so the silence counts for less. Caveat: this may be ordinary dread of calling on someone; equally unprovable.

A question to carry
When the tune stopped the moment I knocked, was I waiting for someone to say come in, or making sure nobody could?

Carrying forward: I may make one polite attempt to face my grandmother's death so I can feel I tried, and then stop, because going on would mean accepting she is gone.

What I dreamed: I carried a tea tray up stairs that never ended, to someone upstairs I couldn't name. Tea kept sloshing out and the tray swelled up like dough until my arms shook. Mirrors on every landing were covered with tea towels, and at the top a beige cardigan hung on a door. I knocked once, a tune that had been playing everywhere stopped, nobody answered, and I waited while the tea went cold.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: My arms ached, as if I had really carried it. I was still listening for the tune.
• Sorting it out: Knocking worked, because the tune stopped. But after one knock I gave up and called it good manners. I also kept my eyes shut past a mirror that had come uncovered.
• Thinking like Jung: The cardigan stands for my grandmother, reduced to something she wore. The silence may have been an answer, not a refusal.
• Thinking like Freud: Maybe I wanted to do one last kind thing for her without having to see her.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: I agreed I stopped too soon. I couldn't settle whether the silence meant "no" or "she's gone."

What's new since last time: Before, I waited at the edge for things to come to me. This time I climbed up and knocked.

The one thing to remember: The music stopped when I knocked, so I should knock again and lift the towel.

Carrying forward: I stop after one polite try at facing my grandmother being gone, and I may be hiding from seeing how much I now look like her.