The day after the Inauguration, I thought I was in my late mother’s area of town, where still stands (albeit much “improved”) the house I brought my own newborn home to, all those years ago, where my brothers and I grew up, where I took care of Mom, with nurses’ help, in her dotage.

As much trouble as she gave me at the end, I keenly miss my mother and the old neighborhood, the trees, most of the people.

This dream wasn’t long, but it was packed with meaning. I know well how to study dreams thanks to Mom, a pioneering psychoanalyst.

Far from being mad at Joe Biden, in real life I know the man I voted for has infused a breath of fresh air, of dignity, of hope, into the majority of Americans. To be this/close to the President is something thousands — millions — of us wish for.

So why was I boxing him? Rather vigorously on my end, though in retrospect not as much on his. No Secret Service intervened, nor any uniforms.

I never thought of myself as a boxer, never got in the ring. But I did train at length in Chinese sword, knife, and staff; I practiced and assisted in teaching tai chi, with my sensei, dead five years now. “The deceivers,” he called us and those who went before, since tai chi is all about leading the attacker astray. Practitioners will surely be amused at my subconscious. Tai chi is often called the Supreme Ultimate Pugilism: in other words, top-notch boxing.

The word training is another puzzle box: it means not only practicing, but riding the rails. I have been on many cross-country trips on Amtrak; Biden commuted by train to and from Washington DC over many years.

My joints are achy and stiff. In real life, I am out of practice. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, he wasn’t even trying to hit me. He watched me trying to hit him, perhaps silently rebuking me for letting so much time go by without practice, without training.

I was recognizing the President, Joe Biden, as a kindred soul and a teacher, and wishing he were mine.