CONTEXT

The last time I added a dream here it was to come out as trans. Then in 2018 a big anti-trans backlash started in the UK. I lost friends who I never expected to become radically transphobic, but I've also done as much activism as I can manage. It's given me most of my friends, changed my career, and taught me a lot about what I'm capable of. But it takes a lot of work. I've become quite a focused person; outside of work, I struggle to socialise.

This year, after a big disappointment in British politics around trans rights, I've very consciously "given myself" astrology - I feel silly doing it, but it's connected to neither my activism nor my work. I've spent the past four years really pushing to organise things for other people - spaces for speakers to speak, writers to write, artists to art and poets to poe. I enjoy the space astrology has given me to do something for myself, that allows me to reconnect with my spiritual side a little bit.

THE DREAM

A friend ran an art gallery, and I was helping her run a big show. I was wandering around, talking to the guests, filling up their wine, talking about the pieces and trying to seek out potential sales. Mostly, I was trying to be sociable and make the guests feel good.

It was going okay, until someone mentioned that we had a desperate need to do stocking up. The man was quite angry. In his view, I had been milling around apparently not doing very much. I felt put off by this, I'd not been having fun, quite the opposite. I don't like rich people and wouldn't discuss high art for fun. I was working the room! But he was right that we needed more ornaments, postcards, and other things to sell. The gallery was looking bare in that respect. And that was the respect that mattered - poor people deserve beauty, the upper classes can get by on wealth for all I care.

As we walked upstairs someone was telling me how he'd sold seven postcards, and I realised I was far, far behind him. I hadn't sold any postcards! All I'd sold was one painting. It was only as I walked and felt bad about it that I recalled the painting was about six feet by six feet, and I'd made about £2000 on that one sale. More than enough to cover our operational costs and keep the lights on for a while.

I still felt like I had some catching up to do, though. I needed to get back and sell those postcards!

The stairs creaked upwards to a narrow gap. The only way I could squeeze through was to take my dress off, scrabble through, and fall face first onto the splintery wooden floor, naked, like I'd just been born. I felt embarrassed, unfit, and scared I wouldn't be able to make it out again, but I was in the storeroom, with all the old things that had never sold, and also the little ornaments and postcards we wanted to get to the shop floor.

But also, I was naked and transgender in a place where I could be seen by others. That's a terrifying position to be in. My body can be interpreted as a threat, or as inauthentically female. I've had people I trust complain to me about trans women who "don't make an effort" like it's just axiomatically true that our bodies exist for them to judge. A cis person seeing my penis is literally unthinkable.

I rushed into the store room, and found an ill fitting white robe to wear. Something to keep my decency while I rushed to restock.

A confession: I actually liked how I looked in the robe. I felt beautiful and somewhat ethereal. I was worried the robe would drop, but as long as I held it just so, I liked the effect.

The owner of the gallery was there, dealing out pieces for a game. It was a really fun board game called "In Your Stars". It was kind of a life simulator game played on a board shaped like an astrology chart. I felt guilty not helping the gallery, but it was literally her event, I wasn't being paid, and she was inviting me to play.

The game was from 1927 - and the motto on the money and the rules read

I remembered, in the dream, that I'd played the game before and the pieces had been in good condition, it had all worked well. Now, the game was falling apart--the rule book was unreadable, even our memory of the rules was fading. The texture of the tokens disintegrating in my hands is a really strong and upsetting sense memory that still lingers with me, days later. The only thing not falling apart on them was the tacky transparent glue that I knew I would pull apart through involuntary fiddling.

Nobody else seemed upset that the tokens were disintegrating in their hands, or that we might never be able to play this game again. Or even that we were forgetting rules that we could no longer check. I tried to convince myself that it could be restored, we could buy another copy, or make one. But I felt unsure. I was so uncomfortable. I didn't want to lose the game or play it. I wanted to be a good friend by doing work for my friend, but I also wanted to honour her wish for company. I liked how I looked in the robe but didn't want people to see me in it. I felt like I was letting everyone down, but I had already more than done my part.

NOTES

• The 1920s are often an important era in my dreams, because it's a period we are losing access to as people die.
• Pluto: A lot of podcasts I've been listening to have been about Pluto. This week, Pluto went into Aquarius. I don't know if I knew it inside the dream, but it's obvious to me now what Pluto was about. You make a game based on planets, then when it's only just out, a new planet is discovered. You could redesign the game, but that's expensive. But without the new planet, the game will seem dated. So you add a note claiming that the new planet is the most important of them all, and therefore doesn't need to be mentioned, because it's everywhere. It's nonsense, but it's cheap and easy. I respect the hustle.
• The worry underlying all this is that astrology feels like a connection to the spiritual and emotional side of life that I've not had for a while. It's quite nice to be able to explore it. But it's fragile. I feel embarrassed talking about it, and I also know my brain will only give me so long to explore this before it hyper-fixates on something else.
• There's also this big message in there, which I'm trying to take to heart, of learning to relax. and allow myself a bit of joy in things. I'm trying hard to find a space for that, and to understand the rules about when it's allowed. Underlying all this is, I feel like this is an important time in my life. I wanted to add something to the record.

EDITOR'S NOTES

• Pluto in 1927: an odd detail. Clyde Tombaugh first spotted it in 1930. Did Lena's unconscious not know this, or is the discrepancy signal not noise?
• Pluto moving into Aquarius: Pluto moves so slowly this is the first such shift in 20 years.
• Selling a big painting for her friend yet getting called lazy by someone who sold a few postcards: the pettiness inside activist movements? I've been there!
• I concur with Lena's interpretation--astrology, or nonstop activism, or most likely both, are games that are wearing thin for her.

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