Clint And Me

Have you ever had a dream so surreal you just can't account for it?

It was bitterly cold and windy here last night. My husband and I got home from work late, bone tired. I fell asleep just before midnight after marking sixteen tests and three compositions.

And in my dreams, I met Clint Eastwood.

I doubt I've spent more than fifteen minutes of my entire life thinking about Clint Eastwood. Although I know he's considered handsome, even if he weren't way too old for even me, he's not my type and I've never been a fan, so why he should have shown up in one of my dreams beats me. But there he was. He'd taken over the vacant lot opposite our flat, where he was planning to start a small farm. As a fellow American, I decided I should go over and welcome him to Scotland.

"Don't go," one of my friends cautioned me. "He'll be full of himself, being so rich and famous."

But I ignored her. I took him a gift of a bag of pine cones and some banana bran muffins made with garam masala, fresh-grated ginger, and extra cinnamon. And you may be interested to know that Clint Eastwood was as friendly and down-to-earth as the next guy. We were having a long chat when my daughter showed up. This worried me: everybody knows that famous movie stars are all born womanizers. But again, Clint surprised me. He was friendly but respectfully distant and showed no untoward interest in my nubile daughter.

As soon as she left us, however, he commented on the fact that her hair appeared to be of different lengths. I owned up to having cut it for her to economize, and Clint (we were on first name terms by this time) shared a new business venture with me: he was opening a string of low-cost hairdresser shops for women and girls of low means. I pointed out that I was not poor, but simply wished to save money; he assured me that my daughter and I would still be welcome at his shops.

After this, we got to talking about teaching. Clint was very interested in my accounts of my students' many strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. He listened attentively as I described their most recent composition attempts and how frustrated I was with them, never once glancing at his watch -- Clint has a proper wristwatch, by the way; he doesn't rely on a cell phone -- and asked pertinent, relevant questions about their progress. What a great guy!

Then we started a new topic of conversation about cows and the advantages and disadvantages of raising Holsteins versus Jerseys. At some point, I realized I had misled Clint, who somehow believed that I knew much more about cattle raising than I do. But before my ignorance could be revealed, my cat took her customary early morning stroll across my face and woke me up.

I was filled with overwhelming regret and relief. Regret because I had never managed to discuss the long, hard business of getting published with Clint, or get one of his hairdresser chain cards with a telephone number on it. Relief because he never found out how next-to-nothing my knowledge about cattle raising happens to be.

Tonight, who knows who'll I meet in my dreams? I hope it's somebody I like this time. Just in case, I'm locking the cat out of our bedroom.