I have a "third"
grandmother. In the dream she is actually my
partner's third grandmother, not mine, though I'm not sure why I have this impression, except that it is the impression I have on waking from the dream itself.
We are in her home, which is very comfortable, feeling sort of Southern, something like a home I remember of one of my own grandmother's friends, the one next to the Moyetas, in Magna.
As a matter of course she asks me why I don't wear a dress with her. It seems that she knows me, better than anyone I could name.
There is no embarrassment, unless it is mine. She asks this in the nicest way imaginable, and seems untouched by any notion that someone might judge me harshly because I want to present myself in a way that is consistent with my personality and wishes. It is a sort of homecoming.
But she does not have the edge or the self-consciousness of Gladys (my real grandmother). She is warmer, in a genuine way, not just playacting at warmth the way many women of her generation seemed to feel compelled to behave. She is more intent than either of my own grandmothers on making it her mission to put others at ease, and to encourage them to be and to share their gifts.
This is evident somehow in the way her house is kept, the care she lavishes on order, beauty and symmetries, not out of fear of others judgments, but for the sheer sensuous pleasure it gives her, and that she knows it gives to others. Comfort, being, centeredness, middle-American zen consciousness?