Catch my dreams

Yesterday I sat on a patch of rewilded grass just above the Forth & Clyde canal, in Firhill. The canal lies north of the west end of Glasgow, where we live, and this nature reserve is a hidden escape for dog walkers, runners and dreamers.

The air was sweet yesterday, thick with the scent of spring. My quiet daughter and I curved willow twigs into circles and threaded wool in zigzags to make dreamcatchers. It felt like an act of hope, an attempt to capture something ephemeral and magic and infuse it into our life together.

Later that evening, I pulled the dreamcatchers from my rucksack and asked my daughter to tie them up at our windows. Then I got distracted by my dinner being ready and the fear that has taken up residence in my chest since my benefits have been stopped. I played songs, lit a fire, lay down on the sofa with my legs stretched out over my boyfriend and thought for the millionth time how every time I stare at his face I want to look at it forever.

It was late when I kissed the children in their beds. Later than usual. I felt bad for hiding away in the living room and pushing the mother out into the hallway while the woman curled up on the couch. The girls were fine of course, they orbit me like little moons. They know they can call any time and I will come running.

We were going to watch something on the laptop in bed, but it was almost midnight and my head was heavy. I slept without taking off my make up because I thought my face looked pretty and I wanted it to stay that way.

Three and a half hours later I suddenly woke up. My breath was being stretched tightly across my chest. I lay still, felt my boyfriend wriggle his fingers towards mine. Placed my other hand just above my breasts and blew air out into the room. Noticed heavy darkness all around me, apart from the green glow of a plug.

When we first met, my boyfriend and I found it very hard to sleep together. We are both light sleepers, and neither of us had opened ourselves up like this before, so everything was new and scary. In those early days, or nights, we would lie awake in the witching hour and talk talk talk until we felt able to sleep once more. Sometimes we would become characters and create funny scenes. Other nights we’d confess dark secrets or awkward fears, and it felt ok to do that because those hours before night gently tipped into day helped to take the edge off how exposed we both felt inside this wild new love.

Those night time encounters arise less often now. He still wakes most nights. Read the news on his phone or a book on his kindle. I wake too, if he stirs, but mostly I go back to sleep, happy in the knowledge that he will turn around and cradle me, stroke my hair away from his face, breathe me in.

Last night we laughed a lot after the fear inside me had subsided. After we agreed that life certainly is very precarious and stressful at the moment. After I told him I so much want to wake up one morning and not be forced into battle. No more tribunals or solicitors. No more poorly children or horrible appointments. No more wondering how I can be everything to my daughters and still be something to myself. After he said come on, give me a cuddle, and I cried a little bit. Then he made us both cups of tea and we looked at stupid words in an urban dictionary and made up names for albums we will probably never write.

The light was seeping under the curtain by then, day chasing the witching hour away. He wanted to read. I wanted to have sex. We compromised by curling into each other and eventually falling asleep. And that is when the dreamcatcher worked its magic.

Two hours later I was about to wake up, still inside a dream. My boyfriend was pulling me into a dusty outbuilding. There were mice and spiders. When I was a little girl I was terrified of spiders. These days I get anxious around mice. In the dream, I didn’t want to be near the mice or the spiders, but somehow it felt safe. I sat down at a table. The windows were coated with dust and I could only see because the door was ajar and light spilled into the room. My boyfriend kneeled down in front of me and took an envelope out of his bag. Inside were two pendants. He put one around my neck. It had opened to show two ovals that were empty. I think one side was for him and one for me, maybe to hold photos of our faces. The other pendant was shaped like an apple. I remember thinking that each pendant held a different purpose, and then I woke up.

I almost never remember my dreams. But I turned and talked about the mice and the kneeling, the pendants and the apple, and when I got out of bed to draw the curtains I saw the dreamcatcher that had been hung there the night before by my daughter. I looked out at the gull strutting on the lawn and remembered weaving the wool around the willow. My boyfriend was on his phone looking up the meaning of apples in dreams, and when he said they indicated prosperity, success and love I kissed his sweet face because I wanted to believe him.