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November, 2008
9I have gotten a hot breakfast drink. Though usually it might be coffee, this time it is hot water and a tea bag, and I put the bag into the cup of water for it to steep. I am sitting at a square table, that seats four, in a restaurant or a hotel lobby (where they serve continental breakfasts) with Ron (to the left, 90 degrees from where I am sitting). Ron gets up to go get something, perhaps to serve himself from the continental breakfast selections, and just then Allen and Nina come in and take another table, about 8 feet from ours, and on a slightly higher level, maybe on a terrace, up 2-3 steps from where Ron and I are sitting. I ask for a refill on my tea, and a waiter goes to get me more water and/or a fresh teabag. I get up from my table and walk up and over to Allen's. Nina has gone to get food selections, but as yet Allen is still messing with his own hot tea preparations, has not left to get his food, and so is alone at their table. I tell him that I miss earlier years when he and I had more time for just visiting between us. I wish we could still get together the way it was possible for us to then, just the two of us. He seems glad to hear my comment and is deciding how to respond, but has not yet answered when both Nina and Ron are on their way back to our respective tables. I realize it would be awkward for Allen and me to continue (or develop) a conversation about wistfulness for times when we could do things together, without the distraction of various others around, and so I rejoin Ron at our table. Meanwhile, my new mug of hot tea, including a fresh bag, has been delivered to my place.
After I sit down there again with Ron, it suddenly occurs to me there are enough places here for Allen and Nina to join us, and impulsively I call over to them and ask if they would like to move to our table. It is then another potentially awkward moment, for Allen and Nina may have wanted a table to themselves, or at least Nina might have, but now, having been invited, they could feel they must move to our table to make it not appear that they are standoffish. Too late, I realize too it would mean Ron and I would not then have a chance for a more meaningful interaction just between the two of us.
[I realize now that in both situations, with Allen and with Ron, I was not simply accepting of things as they are, but was trying to either get them back to some idealized way I remember them or to change them to some unrealistic way they might be now or in the future. Yet, on waking I also was thinking it might be good to initiate more involvement with the real Allen and Ron. A separate, maybe more relevant question might be what is the significance, from a Jungian analysis perspective, of the dream appearances and relationships with Allen, Nina, and Ron. There was a mixture of mild sadness, that things could not me (be) more as I had remembered them, and mild anxiety, that I was putting folks into awkward situations, not leaving well enough alone.]
