Dream: Dancing With Kids

I’m in a big bare room with a wood floor. A preteen girl walks in, maybe 10 years old, sighing dramatically and throwing herself across the back of a couch to let her body drape there, exclaiming “She hates me!” — she’s having a conflict with her mother. I sympathize with her, but keep myself separate and above the situation, not getting mired in how awful it is, telling her that she’s a lovely girl and her mother is probably just having a bad day. I feel a little guilty for glossing over her pain so cavalierly. Her younger brother walks in now, head down. He’s about 6 years old and also upset about feeling misunderstood by their mother. I put my arms around him and start dancing with him, his face in my stomach and his hands on my ribs — I’d pick him up if he were a little smaller. We just rock back and forth from one foot to the other easily. I notice another adult, possibly a second Me, is now dancing with the little girl.

S, an exuberant woman I knew years ago at a gym I used to belong to, bursts into the room in holiday costume and starts singing to us. She’s really emoting, like an actor or entertainer, trying to connect with her audience and convey positive feelings. She looks like a court jester, jingle bells and curly hat, or one of Santa’s elves. I draw the boy’s attention to her, saying she’s singing for us. He looks at her closely with a serious face as she grins and holds up one hand to high-five him. She has green paint on her fingers from some holiday decorating she’s been doing. The boy examines her hand, not sure what she expects, then sticks out his tongue and carefully licks one of her fingers. She looks at me, adult to adult, at a loss. I know she doesn’t like the saliva on her fingers (she was always a Glamor Girl with perfect hair and makeup), while it’s no big deal to me. I tell her she can wipe her finger on my shirt, which she does, and I wake up.

I think of my inner children, how unhappy I was with my own mother when I was this age, and how perhaps they need fun and dancing and music rather than endless re-hashing of how lonely and restrictive it was for me back then. It’s interesting to me that I’m more drawn to comfort the boy, as if I identify with him more than I do with the girl. I haven’t seen S for years, but she was always cheerful, very fit and very playful, connecting with children well since the child in her was so close to the surface. Perhaps this is an aspect of me I need to let out more.