This is a story about French fries and anxiety dreams
What are your anxiety dreams about? Are you back to school in your underwear? Did you completely forget that you enrolled for a class and the exam is tomorrow? For a long time, I would find myself on a plane crossing the ocean without my passport.
For a myriad of reasons, I made it to almost 40 without traveling overseas. I’d been to a handful of other countries within my own continent (North America). I love traveling, and I knew visiting other continents was something I wanted to do, but somehow every opportunity vanished from my grasp like the gold coins at the end of the rainbow.
I wondered if I’d ever travel abroad. In college, my passport was stolen in Montreal. Obtaining a new passport was the sort of in-person tedious process my brain is hard wired to avoid. Around this time, I would have recurring dreams that I was on a plane to a foreign country (often Belgium, which I’ve never had any specific desire to visit) only to realize I didn’t have a passport. I’d made it on the plane and into the air, and I knew that after the several hours spent packed with others like sardines, I’d be asked to return home.
I finally managed to get a new passport preceding my 2019 trip to Canada. I thought this might be the end of the dreams. Instead, my nighttime self would continually forget her passport, realizing she left it at home before the plane took off, or (even worse) after. Not being able to find my passport before going to the Austin airport in real life last year did not help my anxiety (I eventually found it in a pocket of my purse I forgot existed).
In April and May, I finally made it to the other side of the Atlantic! My mom and I went to the UK (London and Scotland). I remember, continually, checking the location of my passport: while packing, in the car, at the airport, on the plane. I learned they don’t let you get on the plane without a passport if you’re traveling abroad, so unless my passport went missing while I was on the plane I’d be fine. They wouldn’t send me back.
I remember walking outside in London thinking “now what will my anxiety dreams be about?” Maybe they won’t change, since I still haven’t been to Belgium.
Soon after we arrived in London, we tried one of the cities most celebrated dishes: fish and chips. I eschewed malt vinegar for fresh lemon juice, salt, and pepper. “Can you get seasoned chips here?” I asked our host, a US born London transplant who’d been in the city long enough to have missed the seasoned fries trend in the US.
“What are they seasoned with?”
“Garlic, usually. Sometimes paprika. Maybe some other things. Salt and pepper.”
She confirmed she hadn’t seen anywhere offering seasoned fries, but that they sounded good.
The day before we left we went to an old inn called The George, and I noticed seasoned fries (not chips) on the menu. We ordered a side to share. They came in a little cup, and I’ll tell you, these were the most mildly seasoned fries I’d ever tasted. Barely seasoned fries, perhaps. There was salt and pepper, and they might have been in the same room with a clove of garlic.
Perhaps the British just don’t “do” seasoning like we do in the US. We’re the country that invented Doritos—a food I’m pretty sure was developed to hit as many taste buds as possible. Meanwhile, the British have “brown sauce,” a condiment that resembles BBQ sauce except without the smokiness, tang, or other flavor that actually makes BBQ sauce good.
On the other hand, I discovered Whopper (the burger, not the candy) flavored potato chips at the local grocery store.
So I don’t sound like I’m only complaining about British food: Sticky toffee pudding is delicious, and the Scottish know how to smoke a salmon.
I haven’t had any anxiety dreams since returning to the US. I don’t think this means I’m free of this type of dream, oh no. I’m sure my subconscious is just trying to figure out what form it should take next. After all, I still haven’t been to Belgium. I hear they’re famous for their fries.