Susan Senator

Last night I had my Prozac dream, which I have not had in such a long time. It is odd because I am now reducing my dosage, so you would think that I would not have that dream. My Prozac dream is of a place I call “The City,” for want of a better description. Years ago, when I was in the throes of therapy, grieving, OCD, growing up (even though I was in my early thirties), and all sorts of other mean-and-nasty things, I dreamed about The City all the time, and its various neighborhoods.

The City is probably not a real place, but — to utterly remove all the magic from it for a moment — a collage of places I’ve been to and then some. Its urban part is like Philadelphia (especially the South Street neighborhood, and also the subway system); its excellent shopping district is like Harvard Square the way it used to be ante-Starbuckum, pre-chain boutique; and like Paris. There is store after store of antique, Fin-de-Siecle gowns, jewels, etc., which actually fit me. There is also a mall that is kind of low-rent but has its fun stores, too; some kind of department store with tons of great sweaters.

There is also a very bad neighborhood in The City. It is very close to the subway area, and sometimes it is the subway itself: extremely complicated with gears and machinery that can actually kill you if you don’t understand how the mechanism works. The worst part of The City is this area that is very much like West Philly, where I used to live when I went to Penn. Only West Philly was not this way, in reality. It only looked this way. I never had anything bad happen to me in the five years I lived there; just a lot of run-ins with very interesting people who somehow were always interested in me (like the man who sat down with my friends and me in a booth at the McDonald’s on 40th and Walnut (?) or Chestnut (?) and tried to be a part of our conversation and the three other young men I was with froze in fear (one was Ned). Eventually the guy leaned in and said, “Tell ‘er I said ‘hi'” and left. Another time, a different man sat down with us at our booth there and was much more animated. When I said, “Ned, I want those fries!” the guy yells out, “Don’t be so selfish!” At which point the four of us made a mad dash out of there. Another time there was the guy at the movie Witness, who interrupted every scene every few minutes and we were scared of him, too, and it turned out he was a midget. And when we got outside of the theatre, several blocks away, Philadelphia was on fire, but never mind…)

The bad part of The City is not populated with interesting homeless men; it is full of gangs and killers. So whenever I get lost in that part of The City it is sure to be a bad dream.

The best part of The City is the part that leads to the seashore. You have to go through these beautiful wooded trails to get there, and you are almost there when you get to this amazing resort. This place is psycho-gorgeous, over-the-top fun. This resort puts The Atlantis to shame. There are indoor pools with slides that turn you upside down! Pools with ball pits, somehow! Outdoor pools with multi-level waterfalls you can slide down!

After the resort you eventually go down winding beach roads that lead to an area where there are cliffs. This is the most beautiful ocean vista you have ever seen. I mean, up there above and beyond the beauty of Ocean Drive leading to Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod. But like that. But the cliffs. Well, the cliffs. The thing is, every now and then the ocean in The City rises up over those cliffs, huge waves, impossible to predict. Then the dream is scary again.

Last night I was only at the resort, and having the time of my life. I was going to head out to the ocean anyway, despite the danger, but I woke up before I got there.

Sometimes what I think is that The City is kind of like an uber-world, a bit like C.S. Lewis’ real Narnia, which you learn about in The Last Battle, the last Narnia book, a world that was somehow more real than the world we are all in, but you could only get there in certain ways somewhat beyond your control. I don’t know what makes me visit The City, I only know that I wish and wish that I could really be there, even with all of its fearful parts.

I don’t want to talk about what I think The City really is because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, especially me. I’m just happy to have been there last night, and that I had the good sense not to go all the way to the cliff.