Lilith-tov (silliness)

I’m sitting in a huge bus with other girls my age. We are headed to a youth camp and I am very excited. I feel more like I am seated on a sofa and less like I am riding on a bus. I’m worried because I’m not wearing a seat belt. We are facing each other and not the front of the bus which allows for conversation. Everyone is talking but I am very quiet because I imagine myself as a projectile and worry about which girl I would fly into if the bus were to wreck.

The bus slows down and stops in front of a beach-themed restaurant. I look down at my bare feet. I’m sure that I can’t go in if I’m not wearing shoes. Just then I realize that I didn’t even pack for camp!

As I’m getting off the bus I confess my shoe-less state. A lady tells me, “That’s alright, we sell shoes here.” This is perfect because I love to shop! Inside, I find a section of the restaurant dedicated to boutique-cute clothing and footwear.

I expect to quickly purchase a pair of cheap flip-flops, since the restaurant has a beach theme, but the shoes look more like fancy boots. They are made of soft leather and they are decorated with real fur and jewels. The prices start at $80.00. If I spend $80.00 on shoes, I will have no money left for the rest of the trip.





I must have “shopped” too long because we are back on the bus and I don't remember eating. The girl seated across from me has straight black hair. She tells me, "Lie-lah had slanted eyes.” I realize that she is talking about Gutav Klimt’s painting, “The Tree of Life,” which I had looked at with much curiosity a few weeks before. How did she know? The girl has “slanted” eyes and looks just like “the other woman” in the painting. I realize that she isn’t just a stranger, or even a kid on the way to camp, but she is the daughter of the woman who wrote “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” I had just read her reply, "Why I love my strict Chinese mom" the night before. The girl across from me is a combination of the Tiger-daughter and the lady in Klimt's painting. The contradiction reminds me that I am dreaming.

Awareness of the dream always wakes me up or puts me in a state of sleep paralysis.

Dreams are fun to decode. Last night, before I went to bed, I completed a second lesson of Hebrew. I remember thinking after the first lesson that the Hebrew word for night, lialah, reminded me of the name, Lilith, as mentioned in the Talmud. “Lilith,” and all that the name implies, was how I remembered the Hebrew word for “night.” Maybe my trick backfired because last night I told hubby, “Lilith-tov,” instead of "Lialah-tov."

Weeks ago I had wondered if Klimt’s painting was of Adam, Eve, and Lilith. I wondered that, but couldn’t find anything to confirm or dispel it. I wonder if unsatiated curiosities manifest in dreams because they have not been filed or solved. Are mysteries the stuff of dreams?

Dreams fascinate me.