A TREE GROWS IN HER

A medium sized Bonsai tree was growing off the side of my right low back region. I broke it off, but it left behind a woody stump and I couldn’t stop running my fingers over the transition between my skin and the rough bark of the stump. I was fascinated and disturbed by the feel of my skin shifting from smooth to rough and hard. I didn’t know what to do about this stump and in my indecisiveness, the tree started to grow back. I woke up before I could decide on whether to rip the tree off my body again or to just tend to the tree.

Tend to the tree.

If I’d stayed in the dream just a few more seconds, I would have chosen to tend the tree. My body had created this beautifully perfect little tree. That in itself is extraordinary. The fact that I tried to remove it makes me irritated with myself. But also not surprised. I think most people’s first instinct is to remove the thing that suddenly shows up on their bodies that doesn’t seem normal. Moles. Fat. Warts. Bugs. I could make a decent list of things I don’t want attached or growing from my body. Ticks! Almost forgot about those. Sprouting any kind of plant from the deep base layers of one’s skin would seem alarming. Instead of approaching this in a literal sense which is my go-to analytical approach, I need to be looking at the abstractness of this dream.

I spent Sunday wandering the Nelson with Todd. He had spent his week visiting family in Oklahoma and made Kansas City his last stop before flying back to Portland (and all the terrorists). We haven’t seen each other in years, not since the last time I was in Portland which was in 2018. In that time, we also fell out of the habit of just checking in with each other. A few months ago, it hit me that I had not spoken to Todd in quite a while, so I sent him a postcard. Then he sent me a postcard from Ireland and we were back on track. Except we both agreed it had been a ridiculously too long of time since we’d seen each other’s faces. When I met him at arrivals, we grinned at each other like idiots. Then I dragged him off to do some touristy things because the last time he was here, it was to see Chris, who died four days after Todd’s visit.

As we wandered through the photography section of the Nelson, Todd first said some nice things about my photography practice. Then he asked me how that practice was going and I winced. Other than occasionally printing out new postcards, my photography practice is barely treading water. I carry my big camera with me every day, yet I can’t tell you the last time I took the camera out of my bag. The few times I’ve had it out, I felt like the pictures were not worth processing. I did manage to take some good photos at the OKC zoo in August but I have not been actively pursuing my practice this year. I have not been actively pursuing much of anything this year. I told Todd that there’s nothing in my photo collection that I would want to hang for a showing. This is the truth.

We eventually made our way back to my house and on the way the Bridge started playing my favorite Belly song. I paused our conversation so I could turn it up and we both sang along.

Big red tree grew up and out, Throws up its leaves, Spins round and round.

So take your hat off when you’re talking to me and be there when I feed the tree.

- Tanya Donelly

Someone asked me once what I thought those lyrics meant. My interpretation has always been that this song is about caring for someone or something. Sometimes I think the tree is a gravestone Tanya Donelly is tasked with keeping clean and cared for. We take our hats off out of respect and she’s saying “Show me some respect and be there in support while I care for this thing.” I think in this instance, I’m the one that needs to show a little respect to myself by allowing space on my calendar to tend and care for not just this metaphorical bonsai tree, but for all the little blooms of creativity that sprout from this body. I typed this last part while 10,000 Maniacs crooned into my ears.

To be part of the miracles you see in every hour
You'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky
It's true that you
Are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you

These are days - 10,000 Maniacs

My music has been nostalgic of late and it’s sending me signals and notes.

WHY PARIS

Often, when I was small, it was just me and Mom left to our own devises. My sister and I were separated just enough in age that made me too little to hang out with. While Janell was off with her friends at the movies or what not, Mom and I would often curl up in her bed and watch old movies together. There was always that one random (we didn’t have cable) channel that Mom could pick up on her little TV that would continuously play old movies and we would sit and watch black and white murder mysteries or musicals or dramatic romances for as long as we could stay awake. Mom’s favorites were the musicals. I loved anything Audrey Hepburn.

So many of those movies we watched took place in Paris.

The movies had a way of casting a dreamy light on the city of Paris, even if the city streets were just a backdrop. It was the playground for the Impressionists and beat poets and philosophers. The amount of art and influence birthed from Paris is delightfully obscene. The paintings and art work from the Impressionists are the first things I seek out in any art museum. The other stuff is fine, but the soft swirly colors of a Monet puts me into my Zen garden of peace. I want a float pod where I am completely surrounded by the Water Lilies. Historically, this city is a treasure trove of richness, revolutions and resistance against tyrants. Yet it’s visions of Audrey Hepburn running down the grand steps at the Louvre or marching along the Seine that fill my head when I think of Paris.

I’ve intended to go for years. I thought maybe about going for my 30th or 40th birthdays, maybe for an anniversary date or for no reason at all. Life has always stepped right on in to block those intentions and dreams. It became wishful thinking, something I’d want to do some day but never getting around to doing. With time, I allowed myself to think of the idea of Paris as overrated. I’ve heard the tales from other Americans about how the French are rude and snobby. Why would I want to subject myself to that? Though, I think it is possible that rude and snobby is a misinterpretation of resilient and reserved. There is something to be said about the power of being polite and unassuming. After all, Americans are often the uninvited guest and we have a way about us that is not always flattering. Any way…as the years passed, I told myself that I didn’t really care if I ever got a chance to see Paris for myself.

But I do.

When Michael asked me where we should go to celebrate our 50s, the word “Paris” popped out of my mouth without any hesitation. We started saving our pennies and practicing a very mindful approach to spending. For months now, we’ve been telling each other “We’re going to Paris!” but even while I was saying it, I didn’t really believe it. I said the words without meaning or feeling and fully expected to add this to the list of things we didn’t do. Remember that year we talked constantly about going to Paris and even taking lessons in French, but then we didn’t actually go anywhere? This is what I was expecting, but last week, one morning while I was in the shower and Michael stood in the bathroom brushing his beard, Michael said “hey…I did a thing last night after you went to bed.” He bought airplane tickets to Paris. This was surprising because he always consults me before making such purchases. In fact, I almost always am expected to be in the same room with him when it is happening. But he told me about doing some online training thing for work and how frustrating it was to just to log in and how he suddenly found himself looking at prices for flights to Paris. For the first time in a long time, the prices were beyond reasonable.

So he bought the tickets.

I booked an Airbnb.

We’ve started making lists.

It seems like this might be something we don’t just talk about doing.

For the past few days, I’ve studied maps and guides. I’ve pinned things. I’ve researched walking shoes. I‘m feeling a bit swoony and overwhelmed. There’s so much to see, to eat, to explore. When I said “Paris.” to answer Michael’s questions, I followed it up with “without major plans of doing anything while we’re there; just being present in Paris.” So today, I’m taking a breath and a pause. I’m setting my list aside and thinking about hiding the maps. In a few weeks, I’ll start sketching together a tentative itinerary. One that will include opportunities for getting lost in the city. Maybe I’ll include a day where I just happen to walk by the Arc de Triomphe with a big bunch of colorful balloons. Maybe I’ll create a macaron trail where we just travel from macaron shop to macaron shop. I could devote a whole day to cheese. Probably more.

We’re going to Paris.

BISCUITS

I dreamt that I was making biscuits, but not the ordinary kind. These biscuits were going to be like the ones that come in the can that are all layered. I believe the process is called lamination, where you roll and layer the dough over and over again. This was the part where I was stuck. I just kept rolling out dough and folding it over, turning and shaping it before more rolling and folding. I never made it to the part where I actually cut out circular bits of dough and when I attempted to pre-heat an oven, there was not an oven to be found. I was working in a kitchen without a working oven.

This is better than the dream I had last week where I was trying to run two different time lapse experiments on the same microscope at the same time.

I am not a baker. I have baked. I can bake. I just don’t bake. It is a task that seems like it always requires more effort than I am willing to spend in my tiny kitchen. I’m not one of those who find it a joyful hobby. Yes, I know I am keeping a sourdough starter alive in my fridge, but this is mostly for pizza and sometimes ciabatta. Both of those things require minimal effort. You stir together some stuff and poke at the dough ever so often before forming it into a shape and placing it into the oven. This for sure doesn’t happen in the summer months when turning on an oven is just irresponsible. So I don’t know why I’m dreaming of baking. The dream was probably sparked by a TikTok I watched recently of nothing but various breads rising and baking in an oven.

It was fairly hypnotic.

My dad was the biscuit maker in our house. My mother has a superstitious streak in her and declared that she had lost the ability to make biscuits the day her mother died. Every attempt yielded a dry crumbling wet puck of dough. Her biscuits became a joke Dad and I would giggle about at breakfast times. Her cornbread, though, was top notch and legit. I learned most of my kitchen skills through osmosis while standing next to Mom in the kitchen, but making a good biscuit was never a lesson. That was a skill learned from countless hours of practicing a demonstration speech for 4-H on the wonders and values of Master Mix, basically homemade Bisquik. It was a team demonstration and we made biscuits and blueberry muffins. Except, now that I think about it, we didn’t bake anything. There wasn’t a portable oven at the speech competitions. We added ingredients together and spooned wet dough into muffin tins, but had pre-baked goods to show at the end. Like TV. Or my dream.

Maybe the biscuit dream is leftover trauma from speech competitions.

I think about calling my mom and asking her for specific recipes. “Hey Mom, I’m trying to make pimento and cheese and I don’t know what I’m doing?” This is true. We bought some ‘homemade’ pimento and cheese from a specific cheese store and I was so disappointed. It most certainly did not taste like my mother’s. In fact, it went straight into the garbage after we all agreed that this did not taste like my mom’s pimento and cheese. Her version has ruined all of us who have eaten it. I did not absorb the knowledge of the pimento and cheese in all the years of standing next to her in the kitchen. There’s a number of things like that. Banana Pudding. The pea-pickin’ cake, a cake that does not have anything to do peas. Her cornbread recipe even if contains lard. But I don’t ask for these recipes because I am afraid of the answers I’ll get from her. Maybe it’s just easier to not know.

I’m thinking of all of this now because I know where I was in that dream. I know the kitchen without the working oven. I know I was in my mother’s kitchen or at least a collaged version of the different kitchens she has had over the years. The one she has now doesn’t have a stove or oven. It is a kitchenette, meaning there’s a small dorm fridge and a microwave. The tiny counter is already cluttered with a coffee maker and kitchen things she has yet to put into the cabinets. The last time I was there, she had a plastic grocery bag filled with the dishes we had gathered for her to take with her. I know we put those away, but Mom is in a constant state of packing and unpacking. This bag was probably a leftover from the last time she packed up all her things and waited for one of us to go get her. It’s fine really. She doesn’t actually need those dishes anyway. I spy on her through the Facebook page for her assisted living place. I notice what activities she’s participating in and when she’s participating. I know she has a regular table group at meal times and that she attends bible study classes held by one of the other people that live there. I know she’s enjoying herself more than she wants to let on to any of us or even herself.

I didn’t know that when I sat down to write about my dream that I’d end up writing about my mother, but this is how the therapy works. It’s why so many of us sit down and put pen to pages, so to speak.

WHAT I'LL LOOK LIKE IN RETIREMENT

After lunch on Saturday, Michael and I had a few non-urgent errands to run. Nothing serious. Michael needed to pick up a prescription. I needed cotton balls. I also wanted a really good tomato to eat with dinner. You know the kind, one of those craggy weird shaped Heirloom tomatoes, chopped and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Really, this and watermelon are the only things I have any interest in eating during the summer. I mix it up by the addition of cheeses. Crumbled feta on watermelon is delicious. Any way, we didn’t need much so we decided to take our scooters. Which for the most part, really made the excursion. I was wearing a billowing summer dress with shorts and at one point the dress blew up dangerously high like it was going to go over my head. I had to pullover and tuck my dress in. I didn’t mind so much the show I was giving as much as I minded the thought of being blinded my own clothing and wrecking. That was the exception.

Note to self: do not wear billowing clothing while driving 45 mph on a Vespa.

The two of us zipped and zagged our way around town and after our final stop Michael suggested ice cream. He told me to lead the way and I headed off towards a place on Troost that we tend to forget about. We had to get through Brookside to get to the ice cream place and all the shops in the area were having a sidewalk sale. I looked longingly at one shop and Michael asked if I wanted to stop. I did and so we pulled a u-turn right into an open parking spot in front of the shop. Baskin Robins happens to be up the street and Michael said “Why don’t we just walk up there?” But as we walked, we passed Bella Napoli’s and I stopped. “Do you think they have gelato?” and the next thing we know we’re sitting at a table in Bella Napoli’s eating giant bowls of gelato.

And it was pretty close to perfect.

We browsed through the sales and rummaged through the cheese bin at Whole Paycheck. Then we scooted home, but I think it was right at the moment we did the u-turn where I thought “This is what my life is going to look like when I retire.” My days will be filled with puttering. Puttering around the house. Puttering around the neighborhood. Puttering around the yard. I will be an expert putterer. I will wear billowy summer things and ride the scooter to all of my puttering errands. I will pause mid-putter for giant bowls of gelato or ice cream. I will make slightly reckless u-turns to browse shops where I have no intention of actually buying anything. I have been thinking about this more and more as I get closer to fifty. Which also feels strange. There was a time when I never thought I’d retire, not because of age, but because of affordability. The more I think about my eventual retirement the more I see myself (and Michael) not staying here. Our puttering will happen around a village in Italy or Portugal. Maybe Spain. We’ve talked about Costa Rica, but I really think Michael would be too uncomfortable with that heat. The vacations we take after Paris will be ones where we travel to the places we may want to retire to someday.

At one point during our travels, we were stopped at a stoplight next to one of those expensive boxy Mercedes SUVs. The young man driving, rolled down his window and said to us “That’s some real relationship goals right there.” Michael looked over and said “I know, right!” The guy had a young woman, presumably his girlfriend, sitting in the passenger seat. I looked at them both and said “This is the best money I have ever spent in my life.” Then this young guy in his ridiculously expensive vehicle said “You two are living the dream.” The light changed and we took off, but I thought about this through out the day because the day itself had a dreamy quality to it.

This is what the weekend is for, turning dreams into practice for the future.

I'M LEARNING FRENCH BUT DREAMING IN JAPANESE

Ever since Michael said that we were going to try to make Paris happen this year, I’ve been channeling Yoda and saying “there is no try!” I have committed myself to learning enough French so as not to be the stupide americain in Paris. Michael tried to get through the very first Duolingo lesson and then immediately gave up. He says that he just can’t hear what is being said. I will admit that I struggled through the first three or four lessons for the very same reason, but the more I stick with it, the easier it’s getting. Now I’m trying to use phrases I’ve learned in conversation. I’ve also been listening to a lot of French pop music. I am sure my pronunciation is utter garbage, but I can read French pretty well. 

Sort of.

Meanwhile, I keep waking up at one AM from a recurring dream about a young pregnant Japanese woman who is the only survivor of a bloody assassination attack on her gang lord husband. I think it’s something I’m co-writing with Quentin Terentino because then I lay awake for the next two or so hours mentally writing out what happens to her after she flees the house and all the bloody dead bodies. I have lots of ideas, like this one: Yuri tentatively makes her way into the main living room. Gore and death surrounds her, but she feels a hand grasp her ankle. Yuri struggles to not scream but looks down to see her husband Isamu covered in blood but still gasping for air. She leans down and he draws a bloody finger tip down her cheek, lays his hand on her round full belly before letting the hand drop limply to the floor. Then he rips the chain holding a small silver key from his neck. Isamu places the key in the palm of Yuri’s hand and closes her fingers tight around it. “You are free” Isamu whispers with his last breath.

Then what happens?!?! Who was the assassin? Why was Yuri spared? Is Isamu really the father of the child she’s carrying?

I don’t know! I mean I know, but I don’t know!

Oh, hey…did you know that perimenopausal induced hives are a thing? I do. Also, I’ve been bleeding from my vagina since January 19th. 

The crazy dreaming and sleep habits are partly due to my body, but I have to admit that I’m also doing a lot of worrying. Last week was a doozy. So many things happened! One of those things was that the NIH was told to put a hard pass hold on grant reviews. For those of you who do not know, the NIH funds a lot of basic medical research. Some of you may also not realize that while I am a scientist, research facilities like mine employ a number of nonscience people (maybe even more because it takes a lot to keep a building running). Less, or in this case no grant, money means less jobs for EVERYONE. Putting people out of work doesn’t seem like a smart way to boost an economy, but maybe I just need to be patient and wait it out…

The White House budget office ordered a pause in all federal loans and grants. The directive could upend funding for local governments, disaster relief and education. -The New York Times

Anyway, I’m worried about not having a job in the future and I’m worried about my friends who are in similar situations. I’m worried about the safety of my friends who have been receiving extra amounts of bigotry and just plain hatefulness thrown at them (at times, literally). This administration hit the ground running to make this country more discriminative and are taking off their bigotry filters (if they even had any to begin with). There’s a woman I have followed in the blog community for years. She’s wonderful, writes books on being kind and spreading joy. She’s a beacon of light. Her elderly parents have been accosted multiple times in the last few months. One of those times, her father could have been seriously injured because a man pushed him off his bike. The other time, a white woman angrily yelled the n-word at both of her parents and then threatened to beat them over a parking situation. 

Is this the country that we are now? What does “Make America Great Again” truly mean? Because if this, straight up encouraging hatefulness and taking away funding that supports low and middle class citizens is the way to “make America great”, I’m not sure I want any part of being an American. And I am struggling to understand how anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ can support any of this. Leaving the country, which is something Michael and I have discussed in regards to our retirement, is becoming a more appealing idea. Chris and I, years ago, started doing this thing where we’d take vacations to where we thought we might want to live someday. We’d pretty much settled on Portland,OR and Kansas City wasn’t even on our list, but we ended up very happy with our move. Nine blissfully happy months. Anyway, maybe this is how Michael and I should consider our travel adventures, start vacationing in places we might want to retire to one day. Except Paris. I know Paris is an unsustainable retirement option. 

Especially if my retirement is fucked because I lose my job next year. 

FOOD DREAMS

The last few nights, my dreams have been filled with food. They are almost feverish in nature and often slightly gruesome. It started with a friendsgiving I was attending, except I didn’t really know any of these people. The table was filled with people I know through the internet, people I have never spoken with face to face. We are ‘friends’ because we like the content we each bring to social media. We are like minded humans. Our dinner plates each held a large whole fish and I watched as everyone at the table picked up the fish with their hands and tear into the flesh with their teeth like wolves or bears. I realized the fish wasn’t even cooked and in many cases, still a little bit alive. Yet, the whole time, I held meaningful conversations with those seated around me while they ripped and chewed on a raw whole fish. I awoke with clear memories of a candle lit table covered in a beautiful cornucopia of dishes and people picking fish skin from their teeth.

The second night of fever food dreams had something to do with werewolves eating Doritos, which at first sounds like something Chris made up. In fact, if I looked hard enough through his files, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a screenplay about werewolves who like to snack on Doritos in between meals of human flesh. The floor of where ever I was in this dreamland was littered with human body parts and bags of Doritos. I stood before a werewolf as he casually pulled perfect orange triangle chips from the bag. He offered me one, said “Want a Dorito before I rip off your arm?” I snorted and rolled my eyes. “You want my last meal to be a fucking Dorito?!? Just rip off my arm already and get on with it.” Thankfully I woke up before the ripping started, but my left shoulder was a bit achey the next morning.

Now, after writing this all down, I’m sitting here attempting to decipher the meaning of all of this. What is my brain really trying to say to me or warn me about? We are entering the season of overindulgence. This usually means I just end up adding more kale to my diet. I over indulge in kale. Last weekend, I bought two things of soup: one tomato feta from the refrigerated section and one jar of garden vegetable. When I presented them to Michael as lunch choices, he asked “Why did you buy the tomato soup?” I told him I bought it for the day’s lunch. Then he asked “Then why did you buy the garden vegetable?” I replied “That was my impulse buy.” Michael snorted and replied “No one impulse buys vegetable soup. That is not an impulse buy.” I believe he was implying that impulse buys were things like the various candies on display at checkout, not jars of soup.

Not so secret: I have on occasion purchased an extra bag of kale. I consider this an impulse purchase, a just in case we run out of kale purchase (we never run out of kale).

Maybe these dreams are my subconscious telling me to dig into a more primal side of life, a life of more decadent pleasures like eating a whole jar of caviar with a spoon made of pearl. Maybe that werewolf is just telling me to live a little and eat some junk food. I don’t know what any one at that dinner table could be saying. I’m not eating a raw live fish…but I’ll eat raw fish(?). Maybe eating something that is still moving is the next decadent adventure? I don’t know if I want that adventure and I am pretty sure I have reached an age were I can fully live a “Choose Your Own Adventure” life. Perhaps I will just start out by making an impulsive candy bar purchase.

A fish shaped candy bar.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I was sitting at a bar with a drink when a fairly attractive gentleman sat down beside me. We started up a conversation about this and that. He had a smooth voice with an accent. He was charming. Then he said “Photography is irrelevant.” I gasped and replied “You are absolutely wrong. Photography is evidence of life, the beautiful gut wrenching painful parts of living. All of and everything to do with living.”

Then I woke up.

Later this week, I found myself at a high school graduation taking place at my old high school. I was tasked with photographing the new graduates. I had to fight my way through parents and family to get pictures of smiling nervous faces. Many of those parents happened to be people I had gone to high school with, their children now the ones to repeat history. The whole time I was balancing taking pictures with being polite to some of the people who still look down their noses at me. It was awkward and hard work and I longed for an ultra zoom lens so I could take pictures from the back of the room.

Thank the gods, I woke up.

I rarely remember the exact words spoken while I am in dream land, but I very clearly remember my response to Mr. NotSoCharmer. I also very clearly remember the feelings of inadequacy brought up from that second dream. I’ve been in a photography funk ever since taking my prints down from Westside Local months ago. I cart my camera around to places, but have no umph to pull it out of the bag. I’m just lugging around a heavy backpack. Last weekend, my sister and I took our mother to the Edith Head exhibit at the Oklahoma Museum of Art. I lugged my heavy backpack with us and took a few snapshots of the city. Later on, while I was processing the shots I started cropping the image so that only a bit of the structure was visible in bottom left corner. The rest of the image was open sky. I found the empty space appealing.

It was also expressing a feeling that I might have been feeling.

Now I have a new dream: my dream exhibit. It’s one that takes place in a real gallery and includes extra large prints of empty space. Right now, the idea of it feels just as hazy as regular sleepy time dreams. The only difference is that it has started gears in my head that feel rusted and stiff from sitting still for so long. It makes me want to just sit with this idea while those gears loosen up and form some kind of plan for possibilities. Dreams can come true. The big dreams just take some time and more work than the small dreams, but I’m ready to start rolling up my sleeves.

Today I am thankful for dreams.

DREAM

Chris came back and we had sex. “This is different. You’re different. Were you even enjoying yourself?” he asked me. “Yes…sort of. My head is preoccupied with thoughts. You’re here. And my life is different.” I replied. “Would you rather I didn’t come back?” he asked. “Absolutely no. I’d rather you be here. I just have to figure out what that means and looks like in this current life. You’ve been gone for a while.” I replied with these words still in my mouth as I woke from the dream. I laid there, blinking at the ceiling trying to decipher it. I tend to wake from such dreams with various emotions, mostly sadness..some times anger. This time I am filled with sadness and fear. I think about how maybe if he came back it’s him that wouldn’t want to be here with me.

I’m not the person I was when he was here.

There seems to be a growing trend with friends and acquaintances where sometime between forty five and fifty years of age, the male in the relationship decides he doesn’t want to be married anymore. They have up and left to be alone or (most often) to be with another woman. They’ve left marriages that at least from everyone else’s point of view look like perfectly happy marriages. I know at least two women who never saw it coming. They thought all was fine and then Bam! The spouse tells them they’ve been unhappy for years. Years! So there’s a part of me that wonders if Chris would have grown weary with me. I can’t imagine it, but there’s a lot of situations that I couldn’t have imagined that I am now living. I look across the bedroom at a picture of the two of us when we were in Oregon and the look on Chris’s face tells me that he would never, ever leave on his own accord.

But….

There is no What-If game to play here. There is no possibility of “coming back” for Chris. Yet I still have these dreams that hint of the possibility that one day, he’s going to just walk through the front door with the expectation that everything is as it was when he left eleven years ago. So much is so different. The walls are not even the same colors that they were when he left. His office has been taken over by another to be used as a bedroom. Though it is just as cluttered and messy as when it was his office. The dog is different. There’s a cat now too and two humans. It is no wonder I was preoccupied with thoughts because I would have to figure out how to reorganize all of this, how to tell the other people living in the house. I am sure that this is what I was thinking while dreaming. I’ve learned to live without him. I’d have to relearn how to live with him.

“Would you rather I didn’t come back?”

My answer remains the same because I know that when he asks that Chris is not speaking about the physical real world. He is talking about the worlds that exist behind closed eyelids in that space of deep sleep. If this is all I get, then yes, yes, a thousand times yes, don’t ever stop coming back. If I cannot laugh with you on this plane of existence, let me laugh with you in our dreams. Let me kiss and touch you. Let me argue with you and get frustrated with you. Let me be filled with joy as I see your face. If this is the only way, then this is the only way. Next time I promise to not be preoccupied or hesitant. I promise to be fully present in your visit with a full knowledge that they are short and fleeting.

But hopefully, never ending.

NATURAL DISASTER

In this dream, I am the one everyone believed was dead. Chris was alive and well. He was the one who had moved on with a new partner. I was the one that came back from where ever, back from being missing in action. Chris was overjoyed to see me. We kissed, hastily had sex and then it was Chris with the dilemma. He kind of in a blurred way had just cheated on the woman he was partnered to with the wife he had thought was dead. While he figured things out, I went on roadtrip and found myself driving through a torrential downpour. Water rushed down the side of the road in a flash flood. Cows floated by and the road flooded. I made my way to the top of a steep embankment, ditching my vehicle. The rain changed to ice and snow and I had to abandon the car. I ended up sliding down the embankment, the cold and ice burning and tearing the skin on my hands I went. When I reached the bottom, I looked up to a perfect Fall scene, a landscape of tree covered mountains with colors of green, gold and red.

I woke up, but every time I went back to sleep I went back to being the one who had died. I’ve had this dream so many times, but in reverse. Chris is the one who’s been missing in action and I am the one to make the choice, that is really no choice at all. We both know the choice is always him. Then I’m left with the consequences of that choice and cleaning up the mess it forces to me make. It was so strange to be on the other side of this, to see him having to choose and deal with consequences of choices. Now we both have a life littered with broken hearts and hurt feelings. This feels validating some how, like Chris now knows what it feels like to navigate the complexity of relationships, how we build a maze around our losses.

One day, this body will be a corpse.

I used to think of my heart as a broken vessel, hastily patched together with pieces missing. Now I know that if you open my heart, you will see an intricate labyrinth with new paths looping around the old dead-end ones. In a way, I was the one who died or at least a version of me died with Chris. While his illness and death were quick, mine was slow and painful. I’ve had to let go of how I identified myself. I’ve had to let go of a way of life. My rebirth into this new version of myself has been equally slow and painful. The building of new paths has been like sliding down that snow and ice covered hill, bruising, burning and scrapping skin as I go. Is this new version of myself fully formed? For now. I have entered a new season of life at least. See above where I’ve entered into a season of color.

People recover from natural disasters. There will always be memories and trauma from the time the tornado took the house or the car was washed away in a flash flood, but there will be new homes, new cars. That kind of trauma is the reason why I continue to dream of a dead man. It’s the brain playing tricks on me or just reminding me that my house or car was different then. The labyrinth in my heart has new twists and turns. The landscape changes, but supports new growth. That ancient banyan tree in Maui has new green leaves sprouting up through the chard bark, proof that we can survive disasters.

We are resilient and ever changing.

DREAM SEASON

Last night I dreamed that we were on a trip and I had climbed up to an old church to take pictures. For some reason, I set my camera down (my super expensive camera) and then walked back down the hill to find Michael. I was half way down when I realized my camera was gone. So I ran back up to the church and searched frantically for my camera. While I was searching, an older man pulled up in his car and rolled down the window. He spoke with an Eastern European accent and held up my camera. “Are you looking for this?” He asked. I said “Oh my god, yes! Thank you!” and reached for the camera. Then I noticed the lens was missing. I said something to him about it and he said that I could have the lens back for $100. I felt ill and embarrassed and I didn’t want Michael to know that any of this was happening. I didn’t have $100 cash on me and asked if I could Venmo him. He told me that he’d wait for me to go to the ATM at the bottom of the hill. Then I said “Shake on it?” and as he reached his hand forward, I reached inside and grabbed the lens. I woke up before I had to tell Michael anything about leaving my camera behind or losing the lens.

I was relieved to wake up for a number of reasons.

It doesn’t take much to unpack that dream and see that it contains a lot. It contains a lot of fears, which is completely normal. So I keep telling myself. But it is not just the showing. I’ve put a lot of things on my personal calendar for the next two months. I have my yearly check up scheduled, a dental check up and a colonoscopy all on the books for September. I am constantly adding to my work calendar and balancing that work around appointments. All of that juggling means that I end up double booking myself. So far this is only working because some people I work with are not on time. Then there’s Michael’s calendar which is a topic I’m not discussing. Keeping track of it all feels like training for fighting villains in the Matrix. By the time these next two months are over, I will be bending space and time.

This week we will be witnesses to a super blue moon, the second full moon we’ve seen this month. This moon also coincides with perigee which means that low tides are going to be extra low and high tides are going to be extra high. Storms reaching landfall during these high tides can produce coastal flooding, beach erosion and rough seas. Hurricane Idalia is predicted to hit Florida on Wednesday. Hurricane Franklin is heading towards the East coast this week and predicted to produce life-threatening rip tides. I’m not into star signs and moon phases, but even I have to admit that rare full moon events and hurricanes feels like a physical manifestation of how I’m feeling these days. It is all going to be a disaster or completely okay. I predict that the dreaming is going to be straight up horrible this week.

Even though there’s a lot going on, I’m still considering signing up for an online course on storytelling in photography. What if I did NANOWRIMO in November but used some of my photography to tell the stories, to inspire the word count? That sounds pretty nice right? Theoretically that does sound pretty good, but I might have a new challenge for November and that would be a twenty minute nap everyday. We’ll call it NANONAPMO. Your reward for committing to your daily nap is being well rested.

I’m a self-care guru.

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

Deborah sent out a group text to me and Amy describing a dream she’d had about Chris. It was a beautiful dream, a visit from a great supporter at a time in her life when she probably needed to hear the things he had to say to her. As I read her text though, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. It’s been a while since I have dreamed of Chris. In some ways, that’s good. My dreams of Chris are often not good ones. I am sure it’s because of my own projections of inadequacy and how I failed him in the end. Feelings only I have. I would still take this angry disappointed version of him visiting my dreams. There’s a part of me that relishes the abuse.

That night after Deborah’s text, I dreamed of Chris. We were making out in his dorm room. It was so real, like I wasn’t sleeping, but time traveling back to our early days. I could feel his lips touching mine, his tongue grazing over my teeth. The heat of our breath mingled together and it was delicious. There was no speaking, only touching and I woke up disappointed in not seeing his face next to me on the pillow. I thought about how two days before he died he asked me if that when I got home from work, we could have sex. I said yes. I said yes to everything he asked for then. I didn’t end up going to work that day and we did not have sex. Chris’s decline was quick. He was in no physical shape for it and I, recognizing that we only had hours left, was in no emotional state for it. Instead, I curled myself up next to him and cried while I waited for the hospice nurse to show up.

Coward

It was a craving for human touch that sent me into the world of online dating. All of those ridiculous dates and I could never bring myself to touch any of those men. None of them bold enough to make an approach. Except Michael, but he already had ideas that I was only online for the sex. Maybe that made him braver than all the others. I’ve never been good at initiating and I’m not ambitious. Chris and I probably would still be in friend zone if he hadn’t made the first move. It is quite the quandary to crave physical affection without being able to easily give physical affection. I’m polite….”no, you first.” The reality is that even now, I feel awkward and gangly and geeky and have no idea what to do with myself in a situation of want. Except freeze like I’ve been caught in headlights. Swerve or crash. It’s up to the one behind the wheel.

Intimacy is so much easier in written words. Safer. A better way to communicate. I feel like I lack the ability to verbally communicate in a way that the people around me understand what it is that I am really saying.

I’m better off writing letters.

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

It was the kind of place where you had to bring your own beer, but the fish sandwiches were perfectly fried. I sat at the bar, with a six pack, well, now dwindled to a four pack, of Abita sat under my feet. It was odd for this fish shack to have a bar, but no booze. The owner, Eric, was dark and broody and preferred his customers to take their food and go. This would might have worked if his niece, Sally, his only employee, hadn’t started the byob rumor to get customers into her uncle’s fish shop. I sat at the bar with my Abitas every Friday evening, sharing my beers with Sally, eating a fish sandwich and playing dice with Sally in between her waitressing duties. I was pretty sure Eric didn’t like me. I’d only lived in the area for about a year. Most people were still a bit suspicious, but Eric seemed genuinely irritated by presence.

This particular evening seemed extra irritating. It was hot and muggy. The air had that electrical smell it gets before a storm. Newscaster’s and weathermen were already talking about expected damages. No one in the fish shack looked particularly concerned, but customers were more inclined to get their orders to go. At 9 pm on a Friday night, Sally and I were the only two left out front with Eric banging around in the kitchen. I handed Sally my last Abita and said “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back and then I’m packing up to go.” I could see lightning flashing in the distance. Sally pouted and whined “It’s too early. Storm season is so boring.” Eric stuck his head out the order window and looked directly at me. “We should close shop early tonight, Sally.” I headed to the bathroom.

When I came out, the place was deserted. Half the lights were turned off. I could hear Eric in the kitchen washing up the last of the dishes. “Hey…um…did Sally leave? I’m just going to grab my stuff….Eric?” I yelled hoping he’d hear me over the running water. I reached down for my bag, but the strap had gotten wrapped around the heavy barstool next to it. I bent down and tilted the bar stool with my shoulder and freed the strap, struggling slightly with the weight and number of beers I’d had. I stood up a little unsteadily and turned around and then ran right into Eric’s not so soft chest. He grabbed my upper arms to steady me and when I looked up at his face, he was looking down at me with one eyebrow raised. “It’s raining.” He said. I paused and could hear the rain hitting the metal roof. “Yup, it sure is. You know…I’m only at the end of the street. I think I can get a little wet.” I said. Thunder cracked suddenly and I jumped, again bumping into Eric’s body. This time I jumped back like I’d been scalded. Jesus, Cindy, get it together, I thought to myself.

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but really I’ll be fine. Plus, I’m pretty sure I am the last person you probably want to be trapped in a storm with.” I said. Eric chuckled. “Why would you think that? I feed you every Friday night and you talked Sally into going back to school. I’m just not warm and fuzzy, I guess, but I like you just fine.” It was the way he said that last bit. It made my mouth go dry and my breath catch in my throat. Then Eric leaned down close and said “I probably like you more than I want to like you. In fact, I knew you’d be a pain in my ass the first time you walked in that door.” I don’t know, maybe it was the beer, but at the next boom of thunder, instead of jumping back, I jumped forward, wrapping my arms around his neck and planting my lips on his. He didn’t seem all that surprised by my action because his large hands went straight down to grip my ass.

And that is when I woke up gasping and realizing that I could probably write a decent trashy romance novel. In my sleep.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve rolled the ‘sleep well’ block for the last two weeks in a row. Both times, I have laughed and questioned the meaning of those words. Is it a wish or a command? Either way, it doesn’t work. My sleep always gets wonky around my menstrual cycle. This is also the time of year that I tend to revert back to the sleep habits formed when Chris was sick. Those things combined have had me waking up from odd, sometimes horrifying, dreams at various hours throughout the night. This week in particular was a doozy for the dreaming. In one night, I had a horrible fight with a dear friend that had me waking up yelling in anger and then Josephine was in an awful accident that had me waking up wailing in grief and terror.

Before the horrible dreams, there was one dream that was so odd and ridiculous. I’m not sure what was happening. It was sort of an Outlander meets Fringe situation. I was standing with the group of people I had just time-alternate-universe travelled with when a group of ‘native’ men came riding up on various animals. There were the usual things like men on horses, but two in the group were riding giraffes. This visual of men riding giraffes is ridiculous and wonderful. Every time my brain has tried to skip back to replay the horrible dreams, I have forced myself to remember men riding giraffes. Then, on Wednesday night, I dreamed of planting a garden. It seemed important in the dream for me to plant lots of peas and salad greens. I stayed long enough in the dream to watch things sprout and to see the vines of peas wind their way up the elaborate trellis I had built for them. It was the nicest dream that I have had in a long time.

The next morning, I lingered in bed knowing that my car was already under a layer of snow and that I wouldn’t be going anywhere thanks to the eight inches of snow that was falling on our city. I snuggled down under the blankets until Josephine finally nudged me and even then, I got up only long enough to open the bedroom door to let her out. I stayed there another hour or so before finally getting up. I still did my exercises. I even took a shower. I still did work stuff. I just did all of the things without any rush to get them done. I hate the snow, but I needed this snow day.

Today I am grateful for my wild imagination that brings visions of men riding giraffes and green growing gardens. I am grateful for a surprise day of restfulness and time to ponder those visions.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

The other night, I had a dream that made me believe in reincarnation and past lives. It was set in the 1800s, in a small but busy Western town owned by a shrewd businessman/rancher. This shrewd man had a gaggle of sons that he had spread out around town bullying people into order. No one sneezed in this town without the man’s permission. One of the sons, who’s legitimacy was always in question, wasn’t quite as bad his brothers but managed to get himself into a number of scrapes. On time in particular, he found himself being called out to a quick draw. All the people gathered along the street, half hidden by various barrels and carts. I was in that crowd and I looked over to see a boy raise a pistol to shoot the not so legitimate son. He had been hired by the gunslinger who had called for the draw. I jumped from my hiding place and tackled the boy. We wrestled, rolling in the dust, and I was finally able to grab the pistol free just in time to hear a gunshot. The shot had been fired from the son’s pistol, killing the gunslinger. I shoved the boy aside and said “I hope the penny he gave you was worth it.” I started to pull myself up from the ground when the son walked over and helped me up, dusting dirt from my skirt. He placed the palm of his hand on the side of my face and we looked into each others eyes. He asked me if I was alright and I nodded my head.

Then I woke up.

Their story rolled around in my brain for the rest of the day. I decided the son’s name was Chett and there was something between the two of us even though I was not the me I am today. The story I imagined for the two of them/us transcended generations and was filled with love, heartache and disappointment, but also redemption. My story travels from a dusty town in the west to a chateau of a winery in rural France. It is filled with big world/small world connections. It is an epic tale and one that feels very very real, even though I know it is a fiction of my own making. This is not the first time a dream has led to a novel in my head, nor is it the first time a dream has made me think about who I was in the past. Though, I’m not about to go all Shirley MacLaine over here. Except sometimes I really do think Pepaw is inside Josephine somewhere. I am sure these dreams have more to do with tapping into the vivid imagination section of my brain. I love it when they show up in my sleep because that tells me that my vivid imagination is still in there somewhere. It may be buried under a lot of useless crap, but it’s there. I wake up from these reincarnation dreams inspired to do something. To write. To sketch out a scene. To create.

I’ll be honest. Those last three things have been really hard for me to do in the past few months. Work has been so busy. Weekends have been booked up with activities. The Fortune Cookie diary has a fine layer of dust on it. None of this is bad. Well…Thursday was bad. Thursday was a broken microscope and cat puke on my bed bad, but all in all I’m busy doing fun things. It just has left me with little brain space for creativity. So little space, that I thought I was all done. These kinds of dreams tell me that I am far from done. There are stories and pictures locked inside me. Enough to fill pages.

Enough.

NACHO DREAMS

I woke up with tears on my face and squinted at the clock. It was 3:28 AM. I sighed and rolled over, scenes from the dream I had been in the middle of still playing out in my head. It was yet another breakup dream where Chris was dumping me. He does this in my dreams and every time, I hear myself pleading with him, begging him to give me another chance. I tell him I’ll do whatever he wants and I’ll change to fit any mold. Every time, he just shakes his head and turns away. This time was no different from the last time. I woke up rejected and heartbroken all over again.

I know why I have these dreams. Wait…that’s not really true. I don’t know why I am still having these dreams, but I understand the meaning in these dreams. Chris left me and there was nothing I could do about it. There was nothing I could do to make him stay. Death is the ultimate breakup. The difference now is that when I wake from these dreams, I no longer see that breakup as my fault. I know that Chris’s leaving had nothing to do with me not being enough. In the beginning though, I was not so sure and sometimes even now that idea of not enough is a thorn sticking into the soft part of some flesh on my body. It takes a needle and tweezers to pull it free, but once it is, there is a modicum of relief. I see pictures of couples celebrating the anniversaries that Chris and I should be celebrating and my heart fills with equal parts joy and jealousy for them. I wince as I feel a new thorn stab me and I dig into the medicine cabinet for my extraction tools.

Not to long ago, I dreamed that I had a fancy new coffee maker. At the push of a button, you could have any coffee beverage you wanted. Americano, espresso, latte, soy latte, mocha latte. Anything. Then there was another button you could push that would dispense nacho cheese dip. In my dream, I was giddy and holding a bowl of tortilla chips up to the coffee maker. By the end of it, I held an Americano in one hand and a bowl of nachos in the other and I was filled with joy. I did not realize until just now that this is exactly the kind of coffee maker Chris would have invented.

Why can’t all dreams be like this one?

ROLLER SKATING WITH PANTHERS

I was roller skating through a park and at was marvelous. I was swaying and grooving, doing turns, and moving my skated feet in fancy moves. To the left, I saw a panther or a mountain lion, a very large cat. He was crouched low preparing for a sprint, looking for a chase. I picked up speed as the path curved this way and that way. Then I saw another panther crouched in a tree up ahead of me. I skated past as he leaped from the branch. Now I had two large cats chasing me as I continued down the path. I started to seeing more mountain lions and panthers crouching under bushes, near trees, in trees and all of them joined the first two so that now I had a herd of large cats chasing me through the park. Even though I had picked up my pace and was staying ahead of all the big cats, I was still swaying and grooving, doing an occasional turn and moving my skated feet in fancy moves.

I have gotten into the habit of sitting down on Sunday mornings and filling out a calendar for the week. This was a practice I started doing way before the pandemic. It got put on pause for a while because of the pandemic. Now that I have figured out a way to live a life during a pandemic, I have picked up the habit again. I write down what exercises I am doing on what days. I schedule the dog walks and my yoga time, what days I am in the office. I write in meeting times and seminar times and COVID testing times. Somewhere in the margins, I write down a couple of personal goals for the week. Things are written in different colors. Gray for exercise. Orange for work. Purple for all the other stuff because I like purple. I write all of these things down and then I never look at it again.

Not once during the week do I open up this calendar and review the things to be done or check off things that have been accomplished. It seems that just the act of writing it all down is enough. Some of the things on the calendar are just things that I do anyway. There isn’t even really any reason to write them down. It’s like one of Chris’s daily lists that included things like ‘take shower’ and ‘brush teeth’. The exercise. The dog walks. Those are things I just get up and do. I don’t need to write in a yoga time because I just always make space for my practice. That work meeting I have every other Thursday? I have to write that down because I forget about it every time. I cannot commit to daily journaling or a traditional meditation practice, even though both of those things have made an appearance in the ‘personal goals’ section of my calendar. This Sunday morning practice of writing down what I should expect for the week seems to be something I can commit to doing. It is something that makes me feel more focused for the week ahead. It establishes my intentions for myself for the week to come. Even if it is the same intentions from the week before and the week before that.

I believe it is this simple act of weekly planning that keeps me skating ahead of the large cats. I believe that in time, I will not just be skating ahead of the panthers and mountain lions. I will be skating backwards while I take pictures of those beast chasing me.

UNPREPARED EXPEDITIONS

Spa day

I had agreed to go on a kayaking expedition to Cuba with three other people. It was expected that it would take us at least three days of kayaking to reach our destination. As I sat down into my kayak, I noticed my other travelers really packing stuff into their kayaks. I looked around me inside my own kayak and realized that I had packed three cans of Slim-Fast and a bag of potato chips. I also had a broken fishing rod attached to one side of my kayak. Before I could even really think through my choices of things I should have packed, a crowd formed around us to send us off with fan fair. Every one kept asking me if I was sure I really wanted to do this. I have only been kayaking three times in my life and all of those times were simple day trips, tooling around on a lake. I kept replying “Yeah. Of course. I can totally do this. I can do this.”

It is probably a good thing I woke up before I actually headed out into shark infested waters in a small kayak.

It had been a crappy night of sleep from the get go. I struggled to go to sleep at bedtime and then I woke up around 1:00 AM where I continued to toss and turn for well over an hour to get back to sleep. I was hot. I was cold. My hips and knee were achy. Laying on this side wasn’t comfortable. Laying on the other side wasn’t comfortable. When I flipped onto my back, I could feel my sinuses starting to drain down my throat. I just couldn’t get comfortable and when I did finally drift back to sleep, I was in some variation of the above dream, sometimes stopping by my house so I could get a sweater or a granola bar. Every time I’d wake up, I’d marvel at how unprepared I was for a three day kayaking trip. I mean, that’s one Slim-Fast a day and a third of the bag of potato chips, which were already opened and sealed up with a close pin before I even started the expedition. If I managed to catch a fish with my broken fishing rod without capsizing myself, I’d have to eat the fish like a wild animal, just biting into the fish and ripping the flesh off with my teeth. I did not pack a knife.

But isn’t it just like me to insist that I can totally kayak three hundred and thirty miles to Cuba with very little resources? Hell, my kayak could be leaking and I would be bailing water while frantically paddling along and still insist that “I can totally do this.” It is not that I am not willing to admit defeat or that I am stubborn. Except I am stubborn, but I insist only to convince myself. I need to prove it to myself. Though while I’m willing to say right now that I can do this, I’m going to fess up and tell you that I’m going to need more potato chips.

MURDER OF CROWS

Snow geese

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I dreamt of a murder of crows sweeping over head in one large choreographed group. Their large black bodies with wings stretched out wide soared back and forth. They did not behave as a usual murder but instead swarmed together like a murmuration of starlings. I stood transfixed by the sight of them. In the mornings there’s a large murder of crows that, like the traffic commuters, fly somewhere south of the city. I have watched them from a window at work moving languidly as if through water, one by one, heading in that direction. In the evenings I have watched just the opposite. They come from somewhere south of my house and fly back to where ever they roost for the night. The crows of my dream were not like those crows from real life. Have you ever witnessed a murmuration? Hundreds to thousands of starlings move over a field or body of water like a school of fish, swooping and swirling together in dance. It is a breathtaking and mesmerizing thing to witness. Crows are not known for this behavior. They may travel in groups but they’re loaners within that group. Very similar to a gaggle of gothic teens. Also a crow is at least twice the size of a starling and watching them swarm in such a way was almost scary. Except I was not scared. I reached for a camera and frantically ran back and forth capturing the whole event in blurry photos.

Last week I wrote up a class description for the workshop I am offering at Camp Wildling. I have a very clear vision for this class and know exactly how I want to present it. I sent it off to Kelly so she could put it on the website and five minutes later I heard the first whisper. What makes you think you can teach a workshop on photography? I closed my eyes while gently pinching the bridge of my nose, nodded my head and thought “here we go.” I had wondered when my inner doubt and self saboteur was going to make it’s presence known. I knew it was coming because I just felt too confident about this workshop and my abilities to teach it. I did the same thing when I found out I was going to be hanging my pictures in a local restaurant for two months. I spent weeks tugging at my hair and gnashing my teeth, asking myself “what on earth was I thinking?” and telling myself I was not good enough for this. I never even realized I had gotten over all of that until I talked to Talaura in December. All of the worries about the showing that I expressed to her where technical things like how to hang the pictures. It was Talaura who pointed it out that none of my worries had anything to do with my artistic worth. I paused when she said this because there is some part of me that still has that doubt. That kind of doubt has just become so minuscule that I hardly even notice it.

A lot of folklore portrays crows as harbingers of death. We see them linked with scarecrows and Halloween decorations. They come across as dark and gloomy creatures cawing out ‘never more’ in poetry. A crow is more than this. There is some ancient legend about the fall of the Kingdom of England if ravens are removed from the Tower of London. There are six of them living in the tower now. The Pacific Northwest Native Americans believed that a raven was the creator of the world, carrying around a pebble in his beak until it was too tired and then dropping it in a large body of water. The stone became the land we live on. Crows are smart birds, maybe even as smart as apes. They use tools, sometimes even make their own tools and they recognize faces. Some crows can count. One lu-lu dream interpretation site I came across said the groups of freely flying crows in a dream represents your intelligence and suggests that you trust your instinct. Basically it means you should believe in yourself.

If this is the case, then may we all dream of crows behaving like starlings.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Sparse

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I walked all the way to Los Angeles. Along the way, I passed through isolated towns that consisted of run down diners and two-pump gas stations. Tumbleweeds the size of boulders rolled across the two-lane highway. Sometimes I would spot a roadrunner or jackrabbit. There were several miles where I was followed by a lone coyote. Every time I stopped to drink from my water bottle, he would sit and look off into the distance with an air of indifference. I passed an area of white sand and could see several dune buggies bouncing over the hills and could hear people whooping and hollering as the buggy leaped into the air. I just kept on walking. When I reached the outskirts of L.A., I had to cross an old bridge that was made from just random pieces of wood laid down here and there. I could see nails sticking out of some planks and crumbled edges of plywood. This was not a sturdy bridge, but I stepped out onto the first plank. I proceeded to make my way, creeping along slowely and carefully, sometimes having to leap over missing sections and just having to trust that I was landing on something solid.

But I made it across.

Once I crossed the bridge, I found myself in the most beautiful cemetery. The headstones and memorials were all pieces of art. The largest one that stood out in the middle of the cemetery was a large rounded horse with a large rounded person sitting on top. It looked like a sculpture by Diego Rivera except the person riding the horse was painted up as the most beautifully glorious drag queen with big blond hair and bright blue eyeshadow. I spent hours wandering around this cemetery, gazing at all the different headstones. I eventually made my way back to the center and sat down in front of the Diego Rivera like sculpture. Then I started to weep. It wasn’t that I was sad; I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, the headstones and the people the headstones memorialized. It was all so stunning. I was overwhelmed with how this place honored those that resided there.

I woke up with tears still streaming down my face and thinking that the sight of that cemetery was truly worth crossing that scary bridge, because the walk itself was not a bad time. There was plenty to see as I walked along the highway. Sure, it was a long walk. The weather was unpredictable with hot sunny days and sudden rain storms. The wind blew constantly, swirling up dirt devils, but the landscape was beautiful. The sunrises and sunsets looked like paintings in the sky. Some times I would stop in one of those diners for a meal and I would chat with locals. I would be completely drawn into their stories they had to share about their lives and this place. I greeted every wildlife sighting with the wonder and fascination of a small child. It was truly a joy to be on this trek. Really, the only horrible part of that walk was crossing that bridge into L.A. It was the only time in my dream that I was terrified. My legs shook with each tentative step. My palms were sweaty and my mouth was dry. There were times I thought that I could not do this. I could not make it across this bridge. I was going to fall to my death.

Except, I didn’t.

I know full well what that walk to L.A. represents. I know what the truly horrible part is and I know that there is something truly beautiful and amazing on the other side of the truly horrible. I am thankful for the other side.

WHAT TO WRITE WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE

Path

0 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Path"

Two nights ago, I dreamed that I had made three purchases: a new case for my iPhone, socks, and a yellow highlighter. I was also at some scientific conference with a group of coworkers and my boss was walking around with a leather satchel filled with scientific papers and silverware. He had enough forks, spoons and butter knives for a dinner party of 20. The new case for my phone was the wrong size. It was the correct width, but twice as long as the actual phone. The socks were meant to be crew cut, but turned out to be short ankle socks. The yellow highlighter would only work if I was highlighting in a left to right motion.

I can explain the part about the new case and the socks. That very same day I had this dream, I traded my old iPhone for the new iPhone (camera) that involved two Best Buy stores and a tech guy with a wandering eye. I ordered a new case as soon as we got home, but the one that I want is not currently in stock. I will not get my case until (fingers crossed) some time next week. Michael has told me at least four times a day since to not break my phone. Neither of us want to step into a Best Buy any time soon. Except Michael has to because he bought a TV antenna that doesn’t work any better than the one we already have. Now for the sock mishap; that’s easy. I bought some socks online for Michael’s birthday present and they ended up being the right size, but the wrong style. As it turns out, I can only order the right size, which is 13, in an ankle sock. I returned the socks and ordered the crew style even though they will be a size too small.

This is why his socks have holes in all the toes.

I cannot explain why my boss had so much silverware on him other than he always seems to be eating. If you are the constant eating type, you might find it handy to have your own silverware on you in case of a food emergency. I don’t think this particular part of my dream was anything more than the weird thing that ends up in dreamland. It is not significant. The yellow highlighter though may be significant. The significant part has something to do with how the highlighter would only work if I was moving from left to right. I know that it makes sense to be moving a highlighter from left to right, but some times I don’t. Some times I move back and forth over half of a paragraph, painting the words with bright yellow paint. “Pay attention to this part!” I scream inside my head as I move violently back and forth with the highlighter, in some attempt to keep that information in my brain. If the paper I am reading is particularly challenging, I may end up coloring the whole damn thing. Which is not helpful. It just means I don’t understand the science.

Yes. There are many many many times I do not understand the science. That’s why I read and re-read stuff and talk with other scientists. I take apart the information in a paper so I can reconstruct how they came about the information to build the paper. Then, I might understand the science, but I don’t think the highlighter is about understanding or memory. I think it’s trying to tell me something about direction. Moving left to right moves you down a pace. Moving left to right, then right to left just takes you back to where you started. Maybe what annoys me about that highlighter only working in one direction is that I am so used to moving back and forth, circling back to the same thoughts, actions and habits and never really moving away from the destructive ones. Whatever I am working towards is only going to work if I move mindfully in one direction. These are the things I am working on now, before I feel the need to make it a New Year’s resolution. I don’t want New Year’s resolutions.

I want Life resolutions.