Dreaming
February 6, 2024
Last night I woke myself up at 1:30am because I was yelling “Take them in the niiiiiight!” in my sleep. The bad dream (I’d watched a TikTok about visiting Dracula’s castle before I fell asleep) kept me awake for a while, during which time I googled does perimenopause cause bad, lucid dreams and guess what – the answer is yes.
Not everything can be blamed on hormones, however. Years ago when James and I were a new couple in Williamsburg Brooklyn, I was dreaming about something that compelled me to yank his pillow out from under his head and hurl it across the room. I woke up immediately after his head plonked down on the mattress and he said “Oof” and I looked over and he was lying there with his eyes open, confused, and I put the pieces together of what had just happened. I would have lied to him and said it was all a dream but the pillow was on the other side of the room.
When I was a teenager my friends Jaime, Penny and I were sleeping in my bed after a night of heavy drinking (it was the 80s). Jaime was on my right, Penny on my left, and I was in the middle, wearing a witch’s hat for reasons known only to myself, when Penny started yelling “pull over into the gas station!” and Jaime who was still asleep piped up and said, “Jennifer, why don’t you just pull over into the gas station?” I laid there in bed wearing my witch’s hat questioning my sanity.
Speaking of sanity, I’ve held on to mine pretty well this winter, if I do say so myself. This is probably the mental healthiest I’ve felt in 5 years of living through the dark season in the Netherlands. I’m not sure what the magic formula is, but I think it’s a combo of forcing myself to exercise semi-regularly, getting outside at least once a day, sitting in front of my SAD lamp while I drink my coffee every morning, and all the travel we’re doing this year. The trips to NYC and San Diego were huge factors in heading off my seasonal depression early on in the dark cycle when we lose light so fast it’s jarring.
Look at how much light we get in summer vs winter in Amsterdam.
We have more travel coming up. Later this month we’re driving to Austria so James and JW can snowboard and ski and I’ll hang out doing whatever I feel like since I don’t ski any more. I was a pretty good skier, but I never liked it. I was always scared out of my mind but I was good at hiding it. James didn’t catch on that I was stressed the whole time I was on skis until about 4 years into our marriage when he took me to the top of Whistler and I finally stopped pretending and he was like, um, why has this taken so long for you to reveal to me and I was like who the hell knows, I don’t even know myself. I quit skiing shortly after that and it was the best decision. The Alps are delightful without ever strapping on a pair of skis.
In March we’re going to the Kerr Forge in Battlesbridge, England so that JW can make a viking ax. It was one of their Christmas presents. James and JW got into forging a few years ago and love it and when James discovered there was a Kerr forge he was like, we have to go. We’re going to spend a couple of days in London first. If you only had a few hours in London proper, which dead Tudor noble’s grave would you visit? I googled what are the most flamboyant restaurants in London and now we have reservations at Sarastro for dinner (I don’t care if it’s cheesy, I am the cheese, and the cheese stands alone). We’re also going to see the Book of Mormon and have tea at the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon at Fortnum and Mason which I love, (I already know what I’m going to order), and we’ll spend a night out in the country by the forge while JW makes their viking ax.
Me to James: “Do I look too conspicuous in this coat?”
In April we are taking a big road trip through Spain. This has been on our bucket list since moving to Amsterdam, but the pandemic got in the way. I’m still working on the itinerary, but it’s going to be something like fly into Madrid, stop into Toledo to show JW all the medieval business (which they would have appreciated a lot more when they were 12 like we’d originally planned, but it will still be cool,) then drive down through Cordoba and Sevilla to Rota so we can visit the village where I lived when I was a kid. I found our old house on google maps and it’s still there, which is surprising because that entire area has changed so much from the quiet little fishing village it used to be to a major tourist beach destination with luxury condos and resorts. I hope I can find the Spanish family that lived next door to us. I have a feeling they are still there.
After Rota we’ll head over to the Alhambra, which I’ve been to many times when I was younger, but I will see it through new eyes now that I am an expert on The War of the Roses and Catherine of Aragon. Then we’ll head back along the coast up to Valencia where we hope to visit some friends who retired there. James and I will be scoping out the entire Spanish coast to see if we think it’s a place we might like to live as well. Spain is a lot cheaper than the Netherlands, I know way more Spanish than Dutch, they have great visas, and the weather is fabulous, though it’s probably too hot for me in the summers. What if we could find a way to spend winters in Spain and summers in Amsterdam?
Wouldn’t that be living the dream?
A dead tree fell on Shrimpy during our last storm but she’s fine now.