Me, I'm just the lucky kind.

I'm at some sort of convention or arts camp or conference of some sort where there appear to be not only avid animal-lovers but also the majority of people there were young adult musicians. We were assigned hotel rooms based on the name of our pets rather than our own names. I’m rooming with Anna and we use Rosie’s name instead of Max (her dog) because it’s less common.

Performers play and sing at every meeting and meal, and at our opening gathering a stocky brunette starts playing “Things We Said Today” on guitar and singing. I really vividly remember him standing up a few feet away from me on the white tile floor with his acoustic guitar and playing those kind of low and fast notes that start the first phrase in that song - I'll probably post a video for clarification. (Pretty much the first thing you hear. He was a decent guitarist.)



He forgets the lyrics almost immediately. I’m sitting at a table to his right just observing, but I know the song so I start to sing along to help him out. He smiles at me gratefully and continues to occasionally forget his words but I know all of them and am confident when not in the spotlight so I keep singing along with him until the song is over. I worry that I was kind of annoying to everyone else but he thanks me sheepishly.

At that point I go upstairs to find my hotel room, which takes me forever. (And that's not specific to dreams.)

When I finally get to the room that says “Rosie” and then my name and Anna's name in smaller print underneath it. Instead of going into the room, I sit down just outside the door on the carpet; at first I’m not sure why, then I realize it’s because I’m suddenly holding a newborn infant. I seem to have found it on the floor. It’s a baby boy (named Ethan, but I know it's not EMS.) with a scrunched-up pink face and little pink hands. He’s wearing a dark green ones-y and a dark green knitted hat on his head, both with the a large white S (the Michigan State logo) on them. I remember feeling the weight of him in my hands very distinctly. I was supporting his head with one hand and his body with the other and he couldn’t have been more than seven or eight pounds. He was warm. I held him close to me instinctively, and as I did, my mom walked into the hallway. I started babbling, trying to pass off the fact that I was holding a baby (which was apparently somehow my baby) as some sort of silly circumstance, but as would happen in real life, I was actually being struck with deep fear and shame and very quickly stopped feeling maternal and wanted the baby to go away.