I woke up this morning to a dream about a combination of the Wesley Foundation and Memorial Union buildings on the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus. I was with a friend and, oddly, the friend had no clear real-life model. (I suspect that if the dream had continued more specific characteristics taken from actual people would have emerged in the story.)
We were walking on what passed for University Avenue and arrived at the front steps of the building which has housed the Wesley Foundation and University United Methodist Church -- or anyway a building with similar stone walls and a comparable evocation of nostaligia. The interior however was more similar to the Memorial Union building set between the original campus and Lake Mendota in both its Germanic styling and the existence of a restaurant.
This restaurant was quickly adopted as our destination. It was located on the topmost of the building's cryptic 7 floors. (Only 2 floors, or perhaps 3, were visible when approaching from the outside.) The dream wisely compressed the narration of the navigation of the stairway; the building was too ancient for an elevator to be part of its design and the stair's styling and decoration were consistent throughout its height, which is to say impressive upon entrance but boring after ascending even a few stories.
I woke up before we entered the restaurant and found a table or even so much as seen the sign which surely would have named the space. That surely is an opportunity lost. What message from my subconscious would have been evinced by 2 friends sitting down in a grand and storied dining space to share a lunch?
In actual reality I have deep connections with the Wesley Foundation building reaching back to childhood and thinner ones just as long with the Memorial Union. There is an aura which attaches to both which evokes a sense of mystery and almost of magic attaching to both spaces. They were each so different from any other place in my early experience and remained distinctive even with the broadened range of architecture in adulthood.
But why was I dreaming up semi-magical spaces this morning? For what was I yearning in a 7th floor dining hall which we never reached?
I woke up wishing I was being summoned to found such a restaurant but this would seem unlikely. The totality of my food service expertise (beyond the college dishwashing job) consists in the fact that half a century ago I knew one person who was capable of operating such a restaurant. (He actually did for a few years but later was a lobbyist to the Wisconsin legislature on behalf of America's class I railroads.)
If there is a message in my dream it likely lies in the need to recover some of the magic which adheres to the memory of those structures, a kind of illusion which conveys the truth: If you belong in this magical space then certainly you are a unique and special person. Or, better: Since you are invited into this place you are assured of a place of respect and responsibility.
Whether the space includes a restaurant or not.