What Was I Thinking?

Dearest Rachel –

There are mornings when I wake up, and I just have to wonder about the mental images my mind has just conjured up for me to observe throughout the previous night. It becomes a literal case of “what was I thinking?” Which is weird in and of itself, as it basically involves one part of my mind (the conscious, even if barely so this early in the morning) stepping back and staring at the works of my unconscious mind – both of whom reside in the same organ, mind you, so you’d expect that they have some communication between themselves – and being unable to figure out what its roommate has assembled for their landlord’s… I don’t even know the proper word for this, even. Benefit? Enjoyment? Neither one of these seem to be appropriate descriptors.

The featured dream seemed to focus on a series of guest lectures at church, involving a magician and who I would presume that he would refer to professionally as his “lovely assistant.” However, since the series was more or less about “bringing the magic back to your marriage,” one could safely assume theirs was more than a professional relationship.

To be honest, I could at least make sense of the combination. In fact, both of these elements have shown up at our church in the recent past; Pastor Scott and his wife regularly do a series of weekly sessions on keeping a healthy Christian marriage strong (indeed, I was asked to manage the slides for when they did this presentation last year, albeit with a caveat that “you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” given my situation, as it had still been barely a year since your passing, and everyone involved was mindful of my possibly fragile metal state about it), and we’ve also had an illusionist (that’s the title he preferred, given the implication of the term ‘magic’) perform at the church fairly recently as well. It actually makes sense that the two concepts could be combined even in this setting, especially since the title practically writes itself. That really wasn’t the problem I had with what my unconscious mind had come up with.

No, the question wasn’t one of why or how the concept could be devised; it was more a matter of why it saw fit to try to sell such a concept to me in particular. Even as I was perusing the display of the series amidst the dream itself, I found myself wondering why I should be at all interested in this. While I would agree that no marriage is perfect, and any of them could benefit from well-placed advice – even ours – the fact that it was no longer removed me from the demographic that could use any of it. So why on earth was this being suggested to me? Sure, it could be argued that such a display was an advertisement for the upcoming series, to generate interest in the congregation at large such that they would attend in greater numbers (although given our situation at church, we would hardly have to recruit such outside talent to draw sufficient interest, as you well remember). But somehow, I was well aware that this was meant for my benefit specifically – I’m not sure I knew that I was inside of a dream at the time, but it was not that far removed from that possibility – and found myself growing slightly annoyed at the temerity of someone suggesting that I might need instruction in this aspect of my life, which was quite clearly not a part of my life anymore.

Moreover, the publicity photos of the two of them for the last session were particularly noteworthy, as they had black bars strategically placed over certain areas – and the visible parts of them seemed to be entirely unclad. Now, I get that, even in the Christian community, it’s acknowledged that a healthy sex life is part and parcel of a healthy marriage – even Paul wrote about something like this at one point, encouraging couples not to be abstinent out of some false understanding of piety. But was this couple planning on doing a live demonstration of such, as part of their lecture series? Not only did that seem utterly unnecessary – what couple doesn’t already have a pretty good idea of the, ahem, ins and outs of the mechanics? – but the idea of performing something like that in a church setting would be beyond scandalous.

And to someone like me, to whom that part of my life has been reduced to… well, I’d just as soon not go into that… having this thrust (if you’ll pardon the expression) in my face seemed particularly cruel on the part of my unconscious. This was a literal ‘WTF’ moment on its part, as far as I was concerned. Even if that was part of their act, and the black bars were actually what they were wearing as a part of performing particular ‘bit’ (as opposed to being added as censoring of the actual photos) – which, in fairness, would have been a clever illusion to maintain so that no one could see what they shouldn’t, regardless of viewing angle – it still seemed inappropriate for the setting in which it was meant to occur.

And since all of this was made up in my own head, I can’t help but wonder what I was thinking – which, when you come down to it, shouldn’t be a question one should ever have to ask oneself. Of course, you know what you’re thinking – you’re the one doing it! And yet, here we are.

Worse yet, my unconscious mind clocks out at the exact moment my conscious mind reports for duty. There doesn’t seem to be a way the latter can look at the mess the former left him to deal with, grab him by the collar, and demand an explanation. And so he and I are standing, staring at this display advertising this couple’s presentation on how to maintain a healthy, godly marriage – including, apparently, a sex life – and resigning ourselves to the fact that we aren’t going to get any answers as to why this is on display in a single man’s skull.

So that’s been my morning, honey, and it hasn’t even really started. Somehow, I doubt the rest of it is likely to get any more surreal than that. For now, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. Clearly, I’m going to need it.