Dreams.

On some of mine.

Hello everyone!

Let’s just jump right in. I should warn you that there are some references to violent dreams. If that doesn’t feel good for you to read, then start reading the section “My Dreams Then” two paragraphs above the picture of the T-Rex.

Wiped Out

As you know if you read last week’s newsletter, I spent a fabulous weekend in Charlotte seeing the K-pop girl group aespa perform.

Don't Forget to Have Fun

What I didn’t plan on was staying out until nearly two after the concert at an afterparty hosted by Seoul Food Meat Co. I haven’t stayed out like that and danced around for, gosh, years. It was SO FUN.

But it also cast my sleep ledger all out of whack, right before an intensely busy week of work.

So by the time Friday evening came around and I made that end-of-day deadline, I was pretty dead myself. I went to bed around 9 p.m. and didn’t wake up until 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

I know that catching up on missed sleep isn’t exactly possible. (Aside: I hate that they’re calling it “sleep debt” these days. Why are we monetizing everything?) And even as I write this, I am utterly groggy, with that hard-to-describe feeling behind my eyes that signals I could fall asleep again for another hour.

But as I’ve been thinking of sleep, it’s reminded me of my dreams.

My Dreams Then: T-Rexes and Terror

I used to have incredibly violent dreams — not often, but often enough to stand out.

In one, I was in a classroom taken over by an angry man with a gun. He got angry when I said that my Iranian grandfather had chosen my name, Sara, because it was one that worked in both Iran and America. (That’s true.) For some reason — the mention of Iran, maybe? — that response angered the guy, and he shot me in the back of the head.

That actually happened a few years before Columbine in 1999, the school shooting that jump-started the modern era of such horrors.

It wasn’t the only time I was mortally wounded in the back of the head in a dream. The set-up is hazy, but I know I was on the side of the road in a ditch, and a man in a pickup truck had just sexually assaulted me. (I didn’t dream this part, luckily.) He then took an ice pick and jammed it in pretty much the same spot as the gunshot. I remember feeling angry; I could have recovered emotionally and physically from the rape, I was sure, but he had to go ahead and deny me that chance.

What sticks in my mind from both dreams, though, was the feeling of coldness entering through the hole, and the warmth flowing out with my blood. I can conjure up the barest edges of that sensation now as I remember.

Not all of my dreams were that violent, thankfully. Once, I dreamt that I was going to get my big break by playing Mimi in the musical Rent in New York, only to open the door to my house and see a giant dinosaur foot stomp down. (In the dream, I actually opined out loud, “Of course a dinosaur invasion would come along to ruin my big break.”)

That reminds me that dinosaurs — specifically, being hunted by them — were a key presence in my earliest dreams. When I was about four or five years-old, I had a terrifying nightmare involving a T-Rex. In the dream, I woke up and gazed upwards, only to find that our regular ceiling had expanded into infinity. And right above my bed, where a headboard would be, was Mr. T-Rex. I proceeded to scream and run into my parents’ bedroom, and we started making our way down the stairs to escape said dinosaur.

(Replace the savannah with my bedroom, and this is a close approximation of T-Rex looming over me. credit: Field Museum)

That’s where the dream ended, but deep into my teenage years I would still have to check the wall behind my bed to make sure nothing was there.

When we moved to Phoenix for my kindergarten year, I had a more comical version of that dream. We lived in an apartment complex built around an inner courtyard with a pool. In the dream, it was an Allosaurus — a smaller and therefore less menacing version of a T-Rex — chasing my friends and I around the pool. And while it was still scary, we could actually take breaks in my apartment to rest up before going back down to relieve someone else. Relay chasing, I suppose. That one, like the dino invasion fucking up my Broadway debut, still makes me chuckle.

(Allosaurus, hilariously, means “other lizard.” Scary, but not T-Rex level. Though keep in mind that I would have probably only come up to the sample human’s knees at five years-old. credit: Reddit)

My Dreams Now: Unpaid Work and Leaving New York

Since I moved to Western North Carolina in 2014, I have recurring dreams about leaving New York City and my last job there: teaching high school at Horace Mann, a private school in the (wealthy, leafy part of the) Bronx.

That job was not the right fit for me. I’m not sure any job would have been. I was utterly stripped of all hope and belief in myself thanks to my failure to get a tenure-track job and a truly soul-crushing experience writing my dissertation. Most of my colleagues in the doctoral program said they preferred the teaching over the research. I never did. I suspect one reason was that my confidence was so shot that I couldn’t really be a good teacher, even if I wanted to be. I wasn’t even really succeeding at being a person. I was more a shell of myself.

But when I first arrived at Horace Mann, I felt liberated. I felt hope. I felt I had found a place where I could learn and grow and make mistakes without fearing the worst repercussions. And believe me, I made a ton of mistakes that first year.

But just before my second year there began, I received a devastating evaluation from my department chair that effectively said that if I didn’t improve, my contract would not be renewed.

I tried my hardest, but I now suspect the outcome was preordained. In December, I was told that year would be my last at Horace Mann.

It shattered me. I finished teaching out the year in a haze, wondering why they would let me keep teaching if I was so bad at it. Every so often, my department chair or a colleague would pull me aside and encourage me to apply to other schools in the City.

But I was done. Done, I felt, with everything: I had no future left that I could envision, now that my first and only dream failed and my first attempt at something else also fell through.

I sobbed when I left New York. It felt like home, a place I envisioned living in for the rest of my life.

With the wisdom of hindsight, I’m so glad I’m not teaching. I’m so glad I left New York.

But those emotions must have left a deep scar, because I keep dreaming about the same fucking scenarios over and over again in various permutations.

Usually, they cluster around a few tired storylines:

1. I’m teaching at Horace Mann, but I’m somehow in my third year — I’ve never been fired. Or, I’ve been fired, but I’m still somehow there, teaching, for free. In some versions of this dream, I go to the accounts office and try to get some checks from previous years that were never cashed, hoping they’re still valid. I am disgruntled.

2. I’m teaching at Horace Mann, but it’s my final few months. And somehow all of my friends from the doctoral program are teaching there now and succeeding, doing just great, while I prepare to leave in ignominy. I am humiliated. In both of these scenarios, I’m also about to teach class in five minutes with no idea of what I’m going to do. I might find a short story, but know I can’t copy it in time. I find my copy of the Shakespeare play we’re currently reading but can’t recall where we left off.

3. I’m leaving New York, but it’s no longer because I lost my job at Horace Mann. Instead, it’s leaving my doctoral or even undergrad life. This usually involves having to move tons of stuff from my room in my first NYC apartment in very little time. I’ve also usually overstayed my move-out date, so I’m torn between leaving furniture behind that I can’t move easily and racking up more fines. I’m trying to balance seeing some of my favorite people and places for the last time with packing and moving. I am sad and overwhelmed.

Scientists theorize that dreams help us process emotions and events from our waking life, though the mechanisms are still uncertain. I appreciate that, but jeez — I feel like I’ve moved on from that moment over 10 years ago now. Where are my dreams about the pressure of reporting? Where are my dreams about the winds and rain of Hurricane Helene? Hell, where are my dreams about getting my big break as a K-pop singer only for the dino invasion to fuck it up?

My life has moved on, but my dreams haven’t. It’s probably a sign of how traumatizing those years were for me, that my dreams are still working overtime to process them. If I have to dwell on these moments, I’d much rather it be in my dreams. But I look forward to the day when my unconscious moves on to something new.

Hurricane Helene: Ways to Support Recovery

Love Asheville From Afar. This one-stop shop features Asheville businesses that desperately need money to survive the slow winter season. From coffee and food to art of all shapes, to simple donations, you can get a range of thoughtful gifts for just about anyone in your life.

Asheville Goods. Another site where you can buy themed boxes featuring a bunch of local shops — or customize your own!

Help Catye Gowan Feed People with Dietary Needs! This chef has been out there on her own since the storm began cooking food designed for people with severe dietary issues like Celiac and dietary preferences like veganism. She’s a force for good, and every dollar helps!

BeLoved Asheville. These folks are the best in the world — the ultimate model of mutual aid and greeting the world with love. Check out what they’ve been doing, and donate, here.

The Deep End of Hope in the Wake of Hurricane Helene: 40 Days and Nights of Survival and Transformation. A Ground Zero view of the storm’s devastation — and a community’s resilience — from a trauma chaplain who lived it.

L.A. Wildfires: Opportunities to Help

World Central Kitchen. They were unbelievable for us here after Helene. I don’t know the grassroots organizations running in LA right now — LA readers, feel free to share so I can include them! — but I can vouch for the amazing-ness of World Central Kitchen. A hot meal means everything in such difficult moments. I’ll add more links as I hear about places doing great work.

Support Karen and Ingin’s Recovery from the Eaton Fire. I was asked to share this GoFundMe for a journalist of color. If you can, check it out and give.

This Week’s Dose of K-Pop: LE SSERAFIM (르세라핌), “Perfect Night”

This song — apparently done for the game Overwatch 2? I do not know games — was one of my favorite’s of Le Sserafim when it came out. It’s just catchy, and the theme of having a “perfect night” — whether I’m at a K-pop dance party or just trying to have a nice dream — is 100% on point for today’s post.

Love y’all,

Sara