a dream

I relate this dream not because I can limn any significance in it, brief as it appeared to be, but because it remains vividly perched in my mind. It was tripartite.

1. I was visiting a person, a woman, who seemed to be a friend but not necessarily an intimate friend. I don't know the location but it seemed to be "southern" in some way, probably Southern California or some rather urban place in the "South." We were driving in her car to a hotel, a sort of convention-type of hotel, for dinner. All I remember was our approaching the hotel in the car. It came into view, we drove into the parking lot, and this part of the dream ended. I don't remember what the woman looked like or the nature of our conversation, even though I remember feeling at ease with her.

2. The next scene may have been in the same hotel, but I don't know if it was. I entered by myself down a long hallway into a huge auditorium that had a few people milling about. The rows of seats looking toward the stage were very steeply pitched and were very modern theater-style chairs. No one was sitting in any of the seats, and I didn't recognize anyone there, but I ended up going up to a person near the front, who seemed to recognize me. She pointed to a section of the seats that was elevated and removed from the rest and said, "That is where the spellers sit." I looked at those seats, which comprised sort of a small balcony standing out from the main row of seats but only about 1/2 way up the auditorium, and I saw about 30 empty chairs, each, however with a clear plastic writing "arm" in front of each seat. I don't know whether I was there for a spelling bee or not. I decided to walk up towards the seats reserved for spellers.

3. As I got near them, I noticed that there was a ramp from the middle reaches of this auditorium that led along a catwalk to another place, and so I abandoned my plan to sit in one of the spellers' seats and walked along the ramp. The ramp led, after a longish walk, into another huge auditorium (I don't know how the hotel/facility was constructed to allow two such auditoria almost on top of each other). The ramp led into the side and at the base of this steeply-pitched auditorium but, in contrast to the other, this auditorium was full of people. Almost all the people were children, neatly attired in choir robes. At the front of the auditorium were two middle-aged men, one of whom I recognized as a minister at a church in CA who helped me promote my most recently-released book. He waved. The other, who was leading the singing of the children and whom I didn't know, stopped what he was doing for a moment and waved also to me. I looked then to the auditorium, and was amazed at the number of children. There must have been 300-400 or more. I remember that most of them were clustered in the middle rows of the tripartite auditorium (i.e., the seats were arranged in three sections, cut by aisles going to the top), and I began to count the rows in my mind, multiplying by what I considered to be the "average" number of children in the row. At the front of the auditorium and on the left-hand side were a few adults, about five, all dressed in what looked like Anglican-style vestments, sitting calmly listening to the children. One of them seemed to be holding a shepherd's crook like the Pope does on occasion. I asked the minister I knew whether all these children were from the same church and he said they were. And then, I just watched them and listened to them as they intoned a most wonderful song, whose lyrics I can't recall, but the substance of which was how God loved all the world's children. They sang in such beautiful harmony, three or four part, and sang the chorus over and over again. I remember feeling filled and deeply satisfied at that moment. Then, I awoke.

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