A Fantasy Revisited

Have you ever been disappointed when a fantasy you envisioned came true?

 When I was writing my debut memoir, my editor encouraged me to include vignettes. One that I sent her and ended up in the book was my coffee shop fantasy. I would daydream about hanging out with my psychoanalyst at a coffee shop, which was the perfect expression of how much I wanted to be her peer, an intellectual:

“The initial scene features the two of us professionals meeting at the local coffee shop, huddling over hot drinks, laughing with our heads tipped towards one another, marveling together about a controversial book which we both read in which the author experimented using Freud’s technique on psychopaths. We are amazed at the insightfulness, the wisdom, the sheer genius of the author’s words in the book’s foreword. He proclaims that practitioners of psychoanalysis are the ‘objects of veneration and fear’; and are ‘on their way to elevation as priests” (Lindner, 1982). We wink at each other with pleasure when we see the word priest used to describe us because we share spiritual inclinations.”

Of course, this fantasy itself never came true in real life.

But this week I was invited to meet with a developmental editor from Atmosphere Press at a coffee shop! I had just signed a contract for them to publish my next memoir, and we would be talking about the book and the next steps.

In this new online world, where you don’t ever meet in person or even be in the same city as someone you’re working with, you can imagine my surprise when as we continued to speak he said, “I noticed on your website the picture of you at the DM Art Center. I was married there.”  I tilt my head to the side in puzzlement and ask him where he is located. He lives in Des Moines and teaches at Drake University!

 The next day, I sent him my Prologue and the first four chapters. Did I mention that this editor is an English professor and has written a paper on Freud? The following Monday he emailed me.

“Let’s meet at Grounds for Celebration on Friday and I will give you feedback.”   I immediately wrote back, “I will be there.”

 I woke up around 1 AM Tuesday morning and started worrying about meeting him at the noisy, crowded coffee shop when COVID-19 numbers are again rising. Now I was being given the chance to make real my fantasy and I was thinking about turning it down.   

 I didn’t sleep very well and the next morning, I tried to recreate my fantasy of sitting at the coffee shop with an intellectual. But in this new dream, I struggle for my soft voice to be heard in the noisy environment, I have a hard time paying attention to the editor with all the external stimulation, and I inadvertently sit next to a person with a person I am certain has asymptomatic COVID-19. My anxiety cooks up frogs in my throat and I can barely speak.  This is no fantasy, this is a horror film.

I emailed the editor and said I am not comfortable with our plan and wondered if he would want to have our meeting at my home.

His reply: “works for me”.

Not all fantasies come true and at times, that’s a good thing.

Image: Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh