Dear Howdy, 

I have a fight with my mother about food (this is a common occurrence in my dreams) and retreat to my childhood bedroom, vowing not to come out. After a few days, I start to wonder why no one has noticed I’m gone when I spot the reason: there’s a double of me who has taken my place. I sneak out of the house to investigate and discover I have a secret twin who my family has kept hidden from me all this time. Unlike me, she is perfectly obedient. She has always wanted to live in the real world and doesn’t question it. She will participate in whatever disordered diet my family pushes her into.

The perspective shifts (this happens a lot in my dreams, sometimes I am just a spectator, and sometimes I am a participant), and now I am trying to find one of the twins with a group of friends that includes the other twin. We discover that she is in a hotel far away and start driving. As we get closer, which twin is which becomes foggy. Are we looking for the original or the doppelgänger? On the drive, I start to realize I’m in a dream and become desperate to solve this mystery before I wake up. We push ahead. When we get to the hotel, the twin isn’t there. She’s gone, maybe she was never there, maybe she is dead. I am not sure who I am now, but I know I am upset. I wake up.

Celia Mattison 

Dear Celia, 

Thank you for the gift of your dream. Recently, I went to the used bookstore with one of my dearest friends, K. It was a hot, humid afternoon, and the inside was so cool it was almost chalky, like many establishments in the Deep South. We wandered and read book jackets and chatted aimlessly about how much particular authors' advances might have been. I wandered some more until I stumbled, very surprisingly, on a whole shelf of books about dream interpretation. I stared at the titles, some more mystical than others, until my eyes crossed. Was this a sign? A signal? How could I know without a doubt, and what would the knowing do for me? I’m still not sure. There are spots in my vision(s) where there are none for others.

I tell you this tale only to say—I hope this knowing does something for you. Now, into your dream we go: This is a dream rife with doubles. You are fighting with your mother about food, which has happened before, but the food is also representative of something. The food corresponds with your own personal desires, indulgences, WORDS, satisfactions, and appetites. It is something much more than nourishment. You, rightfully, want to keep these things for yourself, lest they be tampered with. You hide away, but, like a mismatched game of hide and seek, no one comes to find you. 

Your twin, this second self, is everything you are not. She will let herself be molded. She represents this part of you that, maybe, you once wished to become, if only for the acceptance it would bring. But you know, and I know, that it would never be enough. Your desire is so enormous, your wants so numerous, and if you were her you could never have them, not in any way that counts.

Another doubling occurs, this time in the form of perspective, of a split, which twins can also represent. You are searching and searching, but the closer you get to discovery, the more frightened you become. You want to know who you really are; we all do, but this is not a question so easily answered. So, instead, know this—you are not what you once were. You are more. You are not the twin marked by complacency, by doubt. You never were; you only thought so. This other version of you is so far away, so marked by distance, she seems never to have been at all. This should be a comforting thought, that your fears are simply that: fears, not reality. 

I hope this helped. I’m sending you a dream of twin (lol) suns on a lakeshore; the sand is soft like cotton; you are taking a perfect nap; let me know if you get it. 

See you on the other side, 

Sad Boy Howdy

Living on a farm but never actually getting sweaty. Writing about magic like Elissa Washuta does. Re-reading Aurielle Marie’s first, but not last, masterpiece under a willow tree in my grandparent’s yard. Using my entire graduate stipend to eat my weight in ice cream. Having a good long cry to this album until I feel perfectly healed. Walking through Ghazal Ghazi’s newest solo show.