The cat likes drinking out of the faucet and meets me in the bathroom at the same time every morning. She hops onto the sink, rubs the spout with her chin, makes a wet smacking sound as she laps. The heater fan blows warm air through the floor vent; the bathroom towel flutters. Everything is dark and it’s just the two of us, the same every day.

The refrigerator looks mostly empty and imparts a sense of order that way. Unlike other cupboards or drawers in the house there is no clutter here: you know what to expect, you can find things. Unlike the bathroom drawers, where you have to brush aside a layer of contents and actually rummage to find what you need, pick through things, things that are there but shouldn’t be. There is a lawlessness to our drawers akin to places like Prague, graffitied and unclean, in need of a good shake down. It gets under my skin.

Our environment both reflects our mental state and directs it: I work out of our master bedroom and can’t focus if the bed’s unmade. Why? Because it’s a reminder of something undone. Which I sure as hell don’t need in my workspace.

Mom says she can’t stand irregularities. Crooked paintings, hang nails, weeds. Me, it’s when the grandfather clock stops ticking and freezes on the wrong time. It’s like I’ve just died.

Or people putting things in the wrong spots in the refrigerator. Condiments on the main shelf! Butter down low! It’s either carelessness or defiance. In both cases I’m disgusted and need to rearrange. The outside world and inside world are one and the same.

Last night I dreamt I went to work naked which is funny, because I haven’t “gone to work” in years, and never did I forget to dress first. But it was so real it hung with me as I went downstairs and turned on the tap for the cat.

In the dream I was aware of my nudity as I walked between meetings past crowded rooms with glass walls and fine carpeting. I was aware of my internal dialogue, this back and forth debate: should I be proud of myself nude, or humiliated? Should I duck into the bathroom and don a pair of shorts? The shorts (corduroy OP shorts from the 80s) would look weird, but less weird. At one point the camera cut to me in a gray tartan shawl, a pashmina. It covered most of my private parts but still looked daft. Someone must have handed it to me from backstage, the dream props people.

There should be meaning to our dreams, some dreams anyways, if we take the time to break them apart and look inside. Here there is clearly something going on with me feeling vulnerable or exposed at work. But to put it in a positive light, maybe I’m celebrating that?

This week I started interviewing experts in the wind energy industry. People who know a lot about turbines, wind farms, the economies of scale needed for the industry to hit their net-zero targets by 2050. It sure as hell won’t be easy. There’s a shit-ton of variables and like other projects I work on, I’m trying to learn all about it quickly so I don’t sound like a dunce when I talk to experts.

I think that’s the naked part, opening my mouth on camera in front of European wind experts in front of my client and boss. I see myself on camera trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about and that’s like stripping down in public. Especially when you read the transcripts, and what you said.

Dreams are what get caught in the filter of our minds as we try to reconcile our internal and external worlds. They’re like a fishing net we pull up from the bottom of the sea—trash, weird shit you wouldn’t believe wriggling around down there.

I’m glad for my world, the inside and outside ones, and give thanks to the production crew in my head that helps keep everything running smoothly, especially when we are shooting live without a script and don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Which is like always.

Categories: Memoir, writing

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, dreams, humor, identity