Man of My Dreams

The love game is never called off on account of darkness.

~Tom Masson

Regina, Saskatchewan, autumn 1992. My job as a communications specialist at Farm Credit Canada had been transferred from Ottawa, the capital of Canada, to this small city on the Canadian prairie. My marriage had broken up several years before, so my son and I were on our own in a new city.

Shortly after the move, I had a particularly vivid dream. I don’t remember most dreams more than a few seconds after waking, but this one was different.

In this dream, I saw a smiling, large man in a buff-colored jacket. His mouth was smeared with lipstick. He was standing on top of a berm beside Wascana Lake. It was a bright, sunny day in winter.

I’ve always been a hiker and had already explored the shores of the lake. The western half features expanses of tree-lined lawn, with paved paths for cycling and walking. The eastern part of the lake is a bird refuge, with some paths paved, others only dirt and narrow and overgrown in spots. One was a bit tricky as it bit into the side of a berm. In my dream, we were on top of that berm, with a neighborhood to one side and the lake on the other. We had been kissing passionately, and his lipstick-smeared face was glowing with happiness. I felt that I had finally found “the one,” although I did not recognize the man as anyone I knew at the time.

Throughout the months and years to come, I looked for that man. My boss was a friendly man who seemed attracted to me, but nothing much happened. I tried to imagine him with his face smeared with lipstick, but as he was bearded, I couldn’t quite bring up the image. And I wasn’t really attracted to him. I put ads in the personals column — that was what we did before online dating. If I felt attracted to a colleague, church member, or someone I met at a social event, I would gaze at him intently, wondering if he could be the man in my dream. But no one sparked more than a passing interest. If he did, he wasn’t interested in me.

I joined the Unitarian Fellowship of Regina and was given the task of promoting a series of lectures we were offering in hopes of attracting more members. I created posters and took them around to community bulletin boards, including the kiosks in Wascana Park. By this time, I had pretty much forgotten about my dream.

One evening, a large, heavyset man with curly brown hair, a gentle manner, a kind face and, yes, a buff-colored jacket, came to one of these events. He had seen my poster in the park. My first thought was that it would be comforting to hug him. He stayed afterward for coffee, and we talked. After a few such meetings, he suggested we go for a walk. For several weeks, we walked together every Sunday, often stopping for tea or a meal at a restaurant. One day, he took my hand and held it. We proceeded from there to kissing, and soon we were lovers.

One day, when we were walking around Wascana Lake on a bright, cold winter day, we stopped to kiss. As we pulled apart, I looked into his face, glowing with joy and smeared with my lipstick. I realized with a jolt that this was the precise moment, at the precise spot, that I had seen in my dream. I didn’t tell him; he would have scoffed. Robert was a scientist who was quick to categorize anything like this as silly nonsense.

In time, my son grew up and moved out. Robert moved in.

One morning, Robert woke up seeing flashing lights and jagged edges to his vision. We went to the emergency room and were told that he should see an ophthalmologist without delay. After further tests, they discovered a tumor in his left eye. He underwent radiation treatment, which seemed at first to be working.

During this time, I had another dream that we were lined up for a bus tour. Robert got on the bus, and it left without me.

When I told him about my dream, he said I was probably thinking I might be left behind if he didn’t get well.

At the next appointment with his oncologist, it looked like there might be some regrowth of the tumor. He began having pains in his side, which didn’t go away. His doctor ordered more tests, which revealed cancer in his liver, probably metastasized from the tumor in his eye. Six weeks later, he died.

I fell into a deep depression and had another vivid dream in which I searched for him everywhere.

I found him in a high-ceilinged room lined floor-to-ceiling with mahogany bookcases. He and a few other men sat facing each other on leather couches. Some were leaning back, nodding. Others sat forward on their seats in animated discussion.

Robert turned to face me. “I’m with Albert Einstein, the great mathematician Hermann Weyl, and all the beautiful angels,” he said. “If I had stayed with you…” He gestured toward tall windows framed in rich brocade curtains.

The windows expanded, and I found myself looking down on a swimming pool flanked on all sides by a decrepit concrete building. Several elderly people were parked in wheelchairs around the pool. Then I was on the pool deck, where I found Robert slumped in one of the chairs, his legs swollen, his head drooped to one side, moaning in pain. “Do you want me to live this way? If you do, I’ll return,” I heard his voice saying.

Then we were back in the room. “Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton are here, too, and all the great minds whose work I lived to study and try to build on. They’re impressed with my ideas. I’m happy,” he said.

Then I woke up.

I have often seen Robert in dreams since then. “Conjugal visits,” I call them. I have dreamt that we’re together, happy as before, and then become separated in a crowd, and I can’t find him anywhere. I panic and wake up crying.

At some point, I realized that it wasn’t healthy for me to brood so much about Robert. I tried looking for the kind of intimacy we shared but have not found it. My grandchildren started arriving, growing, and thriving. I threw myself into several activities and stopped looking for romantic love. I even stopped wanting it. Eighteen years have passed since Robert died. It’s been twelve years since my last relationship fizzled. I had no wish to date, believing all that was behind me.

Recently, I learned that a hiking buddy whom I have known and liked for some time — a scientist who reminds me of Robert — is now a widower. We go sometimes for walks together. And, once more, I have begun to dream.

— Florentia Scott —