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Dream nostalgia
For the first time in many months, I remember the dream I had last night. This is rather unusual for me.
My subconscious seems to have turned to cheap spy pulp for inspiration: I dreamt that I was at a conference somewhere, and that I bumped into a woman I knew at college back in the late 70s. I have barely thought of her in the intervening quarter century, in that way people just slip out of your consciousness when they are completely absent from your sphere of friends or acquaintances for long enough.
Anyway, in my dream, Inga was suitably aged - the years had served her well, but she was not still the 18 or 22 year-old I knew back then, but still dressed in jeans and tee shirt. Whatever she was up to at the conference in the dream, it was clearly something she was anxious not to be recognised for. My "hello" was met with a moment's recognition followed by feigned incomprehension, and a shadowy other person would then begin running interference whenever I tried to contact her.
Very strange. I wonder what my subconscious is, or has been up to?
I recall my first day at college as a spotty 18 year old, sitting in a lecture theatre as part of the induction process, looking across the sea of faces, and trying to work out who in that crowd was the exotic tall blonde Swede called Inga Rutenberg. I found out some hours later, that she was neither blonde nor Swedish, not particularly tall either. And she was from Coventry.
I last saw her in 1982 with her husband to be, at a mutual friend's wedding. Contact with all long since lost, I find myself wondering what became of the mysterious and exotically named Inga...
My subconscious seems to have turned to cheap spy pulp for inspiration: I dreamt that I was at a conference somewhere, and that I bumped into a woman I knew at college back in the late 70s. I have barely thought of her in the intervening quarter century, in that way people just slip out of your consciousness when they are completely absent from your sphere of friends or acquaintances for long enough.
Anyway, in my dream, Inga was suitably aged - the years had served her well, but she was not still the 18 or 22 year-old I knew back then, but still dressed in jeans and tee shirt. Whatever she was up to at the conference in the dream, it was clearly something she was anxious not to be recognised for. My "hello" was met with a moment's recognition followed by feigned incomprehension, and a shadowy other person would then begin running interference whenever I tried to contact her.
Very strange. I wonder what my subconscious is, or has been up to?
I recall my first day at college as a spotty 18 year old, sitting in a lecture theatre as part of the induction process, looking across the sea of faces, and trying to work out who in that crowd was the exotic tall blonde Swede called Inga Rutenberg. I found out some hours later, that she was neither blonde nor Swedish, not particularly tall either. And she was from Coventry.
I last saw her in 1982 with her husband to be, at a mutual friend's wedding. Contact with all long since lost, I find myself wondering what became of the mysterious and exotically named Inga...
Inga Rutenberg
Small world ('though I wouldn't want to paint it). Anyway, for no apparent reason the name Inga Rutenberg came to my mind recently. I went to school with her in Coventry, although our paths didn't really cross until 6th Form. On a whim, I searched for her name and came across your journal, and felt moved to add my small reflections.
Inga was tall and rather beautiful, with very long hair - I recall it as being darker than blonde, but it was 30 years ago. She was studious and rather serious, as I remember, but that made her all the more appealing to us somewhat immature boys. For a while, Inga went out with a mate of mine who was desolate when they split up - he played 'More Fool Me' from Selling England by the Pound for weeks. As a perennial under-achiever, I was always impressed by Inga's dedication to study, yet she could be funny and frivolous sometimes.
The last time I saw her was in the 6th Form common room at school, in 1976. Let's hope life was good to her and she to it.
Cov Chap
Re: Inga Rutenberg
Ah, the power of the interweb!
Yes, she had brown hair as I recall – the idea that she might be blonde just came from my anticipation before meeting her that she might be stereotypically Swedish. At that point I’d only seen her name on the fresher’s list.
When the mood took her she could be quite impish, as I recall. There was one instance I recall from around 1978-79 when a bunch of us had been at a Guinness promotion in the Students’ Union and afterwards we ended up, for reasons that made more sense with a skinful of beer, racing down the Wolverhampton ring road at about 12.30 at night, the blokes giving the girls piggy back rides. I dimly recall a shout of alarm as headlights appeared and a mass of limbs as about 10 of us piled over the fence onto the central reservation to save our necks.
Of course, I was much thinner and fitter then. And it was 30 years ago!