This morning I had my first Polish dream, marzenie. And because I am not much of a dreamer, marzyciel, that is to say, using the instrumental case, nie jestem wielkim marzycielem, it wasn’t much of a dream. It was not located in Poland. There was no Polish spoken. Instead, it was a dream rather of Polish class, in which Professor Polakiewicz returned a homework assignment to me with a grade of C-.
I have never dreamed before of C-s. And the class was much larger than my actual class, and was held outdoors, under the oak tree by Number 2 green, where were deposited in the old days the piles of sand and humus with which we treated the greens for their winter dormancy, and the seats were folding chairs, as at a picnic or a graduation, and I returned to mine with this unsatisfactory diploma, feeling a vague sense of reproof. But, on the whole, no big deal.
In reality, I had received my midterm grade report on Tuesday evening after the quiz—pretty comfortably above C- –so that if an omen, my dream was both belated and mistaken, as my dreams and dream life are wont to be. But it does raise this interesting question: if your life is routinely better than your dreams, is that a good thing?
