The Dream
Late for herb school.
Distracted —
flirting with someone.
When I arrive,
they’re in the middle of a demonstration.
I think,
I’ll never remember this.
I’m a kinaesthetic learner.
I consider asking
if I can do the practical demo,
but think better of it…
I was late, after all.
The Meaning
consequences
I make myself small in the name of accountability—
but it’s not growth. It’s self-abandonment.
No one else said I couldn’t participate.
I decided that on their behalf.
What Lingers…
What if accountability becomes self-abandonment when need is mistaken for indulgence?
What if exclusion is sometimes internalised?
Marginalia
I’m waiting to begin a new herbal medicine course. This dream circles the theme of lateness—a fear that’s followed me as I step into a new path, midlife. It’s the fourth in a series of dreams set in this new landscape.
In Incense Blocks & Period Costumes, I weigh old ways against new.
In Fireweed and Bunny Munro, I’m lost but eager to learn.
In Competence vs. Compassion, profiled by my tutors, I revisit old wounds.
In Flawed but Trying, I’m exposed in my messiness as a human while defending my son.
The series shows me what I’m processing beneath the surface—not as a tidy narrative arc, but as dreams do: replaying and reshaping old struggles until they edge further out of shadows.
