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

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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.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Jul 3, 2019 at 8:37pm UTC

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I was dreaming. I’ve been doing that a lot these days. Crazy wigged out dreams. I’m reading Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy, more than half way through book two, and so there’s been some element from these books showing up in dreamland. I woke up with a jolt at four AM the other morning pretty certain that some escapee from Painball was pounding on our front door. Though, not all of the dreams are what I would assume an LSD trip would be like. They are what one might call ‘normal’ or even ‘mundane’ dreams. These are the ones that I wake up from and have a vague idea of something I saw or heard, but mostly it is all too vague to really remember. This particular dream I was having sort of fit into that vague, unmemorable dream category. I remember that I was reading a blog entry written by a woman who had recently lost her husband. This woman was no one I know or currently read. I don’t remember anything much about her really other than she was writing about grief. I remember nodding my head in agreement as I read her entry. She had made an analogy about grief being like a rope and how each thread was some aspect of grief.

I remember thinking as I read her writing that it was very well written. I thought her analogy made sense. Except now that I think harder about it, her analogy was much more complex than the one I just shared. I have a sudden image of gold rings threaded through rope for some reason. The most important thing I remember from this dream though, is reading her post and thinking “I don’t want to write about this stuff any more.” This was my very last thought before I woke up and it stayed with me. I don’t want to write about grief any more. I don’t want to be known as Cindy Maddera, the Grief Blogger. Even though I know all about that rope and each and every little strand that makes up that rope, I don’t want to dig into the details of explaining it to you. But not writing about grief poses some difficulties. For one thing, grief never goes away. I mean, just the other day as I was looking over the yoga class I had planned to teach that evening, my mind drifted to that time I couldn’t even look at my yoga mat without hearing my mother’s voice as she attempted to tell me that something had happened to J. It’s been almost fourteen years since that day and yet the horror of it all still bubbles up at the most random times. Another difficulty in not writing about my grief is that for a while now, I have let this part of my writing define who I am as a person. I’ve unofficially given my self the title of Grief Blogger. “Write what you know".” Isn’t that the advice some famous writer gave to potential writers once? Well…I know grief. But I’m not the authority on the subject. We all know something about grief. You don’t need me to teach you or explain it or add to it. Grief is a part of who I am. A part. I am made up of many many parts. I am more than my grief.

I am more than this.

I know now that I was the woman doing the writing in that dream. I was reading my own blog and thinking “enough.” Move forward. Show the world you are more than this. That is what I want to do. I recognize the healing power of writing down all of those thoughts surrounding my sadness. But you don’t leave a band-aid on forever.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

So, I says to Mabel. I said...

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In the very early morning hours on Thursday, well before my alarm went off, I had a dream. Chris was in this dream. He just showed up and he was alive and well. The two of us were in Portland at one of their food truck halls. Someone placed a crepe with ice cream and fruit down on the table in front of us. I looked at Chris and asked “Did you order this?” He shook his head and replied “Nope.” So we looked around and noticed the people at the crepe place were waiving at us. They had sent it over to us for free. We smiled and waived back then dug into the crepe and we were talking and laughing as usual. Then I said “Wait. How is it that you are here?” Chris shrugged and said “I don’t know. I’m just here.” I nodded my head and said “That’s cool.” We took a few more bites from our crepe and then I said “Oh my gosh! We totally forgot to tell Todd that we were in Portland. I’ll text him and tell him to come meet us.” Chris said “Okay.” and then left to find the bathroom. Todd showed up while Chris was in the bathroom, so I said to Todd “Okay, listen. This is going to sound really weird, but Chris is here. He’s alive and everything and we sat here and ate on this crepe. He’s in the bathroom now, but I’m serious. Chris is really hear.” Except Chris never came back from the bathroom. So I was left trying to convince Todd that I had not completely lost my mind.

By the time I woke up, Todd still was not convinced that I hadn’t gone totally mental. Usually when I have dreams that involve Chris, I wake up crying or angry or both. This time I just woke up. I did want to text Todd and tell him “no I’m not crazy; Chris was here.” I refrained because I know that you should never send a text or email that obviously proves you are crazy. That way it can not be used against you later. Like in a court of law or something. This dream did not leave me feeling sad. Actually it was probably the best dream involving Chris that I have had since he died. I don’t remember what he said or if he actually really did say something, but it felt like he was talking and we were chatting about just regular stuff. Chris has never just chatted with me about regular stuff when I dream of him. He pretty much says nothing at all and the dreams are not pleasant. I also did not walk away from this dream and spend the rest of the day clouded in sadness. Though I did harbor a craving for crepes with some ice cream and fruit for the rest of the day.

On March 14, 1998 Chris and I said “I do” in front of my parents, Stephanie and a couple we knew from college. The ceremony took place at the Chapel of Love in Las Vegas. That was twenty one years ago. I like to think we had a good run while it lasted. Sure, his hoarding tendencies drove my insane and I could get really frustrated with his lack of action. I tried to be more understanding with the later because I know that most of his inaction was due to self esteem issues. We are our own worst critics. But for the most part, we listened to each other and were equally matched intellectually. We spoke the same language and felt comfortable saying what we meant to each other. Our marriage was such a stark contrast to the marriage I was exposed to growing up. It almost didn’t seem like we were married so much as we were best friends who happened to have sex with each other and lived together. So, I guess I’m glad I let Chris talk me into getting married.

I do miss him.

I’m not crazy. Chris was here.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Reflections

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Two nights ago we lost our house to a flood and a fire. In all the chaos, I ended up hit in the head and left in a coma for six months (yes, time is weird and relative). When I finally came too, I was all alone in the hospital. I pulled out my IV and rummaged around for some clothes. Then I walked back to where our house used to be. Seeing that there was no house, I continued walking until I got to a dumpy motel. Michael was living there some woman he was now sleeping with and all of our family members. Everybody looked rough with worn clothes and scraggly hair. I looked around at the squalor they were now living in and said “what is going on?!?” That’s when Michael, who was naked in bed with that woman I mentioned before, noticed me standing in the doorway. He sat up in surprise, sputtering to get a sentence out. I grabbed the woman by her hair and dragged her out of the bed and then kicked her. “Get the fuck out!” I spit in her face. Then Michael started rambling about insurance money and being broke. He was high or drunk, probably both. I just shook my head at him and then turned around and walked out.

And here I sit now in the light of day and reality (?) wondering what on Earth is going on.

My nights for the past few weeks have been filled with visions of nonsense. Someone said that this probably means I’m not sleeping well at night. That time between 9:30 PM and 1:00 AM is fantastic. I sleep so soundly that when I wake up sometime around one, I think it’s actually time to get up. Except I don’t because that sounds like a dumb idea. Instead I toss and turn, drifting in and out of sleep until around 4:30 ish. This week, I’ve just said “screw it” and peeled my body out of bed at 4:30 AM to get on my yoga mat. These morning practices have not been anything spectacular or fancy. I have just gotten on my mat and moved. Tuesday morning I ended my practice, curled up around the dog on my yoga mat. We lay there wrapped up in a blanket, still and quiet with Josephine’s toys scattered randomly around us. I could hear Michael snoring from his room. I could hear the creek and crack of the house shifting in the cold. Then I heard an owl hooting from somewhere in our front yard.

I heard that owl again this morning.

The hippy dippy part of me knows that these crazy night visions and the odd sleep behavior have to do with the Spring Equinox, which is just around the corner. It is my body preparing for the shifting of time. The sun is already staying out a little bit longer and I leave the house for work in the mornings in daylight instead of the dark of predawn. There is something a little bit uncomfortable in the shift because it is a slow transition. Particularly this year when we are predicted to get three to six inches of snow on Sunday. I always imagine this transition to be similar to the transition between human and werewolf. The movies always portray it so violently and painful. Think of the strain the body would go through to make such a dramatic molecular change, but then slow that molecular change down from seconds to days. I am slowely transitioning into a werewolf.

Or, if I want to be kind to myself, I am transition back into a human.

There is something about being awake while most of the rest of the world is sleeping. It is the time of morning covered in whispers and hushes. In the mist of the whispers and hushes, there is something calming and still. It is not a terrible time of day to be awake. It just sounds like a terrible time to be awake. When I was really little, I went through a phase where I would wake up in the middle of the night. I would get out of bed and quietly shut my bedroom door. Then I would turn on my light and quietly play with my toys in the middle of my bedroom floor. I don’t know how long this went on before I was finally discovered. My Mom opened the door to find me with the light on, playing. She made me go back to bed and turned the light out. I don’t remember getting up again after that, but I do remember that calming stillness. It must be something I just crave on occasion.

I am thankful for the hoot of an owl.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tiny wing

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The other night, I dreamed that Chris and I were at Six Flags. We were the first ones into the park and headed right back to the biggest, newest roller coaster. There wasn't a line, but we had to twist our way through a maze of ropes and up and down a narrow staircase. The staircase was the scariest part because it was dark and the steps were steep. When we finally made it to the loading station, the roller coaster car pulled up and the seats were just open benches without any kind of harness or lap belt. You just held onto the seat and hoped you had the strength to hold yourself down on the loops. Chris looked at me and said without saying (because Chris never talks in my dreams) "are you sure you want to ride this roller coaster?" but then a hoard of zombies entered the park before I could answer him. Michael and I had just watched the most recent episode of the Walking Dead. By the way, season eight is just plain awful and I don't think I care enough about any of the characters any more to watch.

I realize now that I never answered Chris's question about wanting to ride a roller coaster that was so very obviously dangerous. Dr. Mary gave me a handout from a lecture she did a while ago about seven things for functioning or something like that. She had me read the list out loud and when I got to the second thing on the list, I busted out laughing. Number two on the list had to do with recognizing dangerous situations and avoiding them appropriately. Then I told Dr. Mary about the time I drove an hour to have dinner at a stranger's apartment and how I didn't see anything wrong with this until I got there. Then it was a little bit creepy that the guy only had one light on, no heat and camp chairs for furniture, but I still figured that if I had to fight this guy that I totally could have taken him. I most of the time do not recognize a dangerous situation as being dangerous. This is why Talaura has a video of bison running down the road with Michael's voice clearly saying "get in the car, Cindy." 

A few days after this dream, I spent two minutes in supported fish pose. This pose feels nice between the shoulders but also leaves your neck exposed. I had been warned that I might get a wave of panic having my neck exposed while hanging out for two minutes in fish. You know, like having the feeling that a wild dog is going to come rip your throat out for no reason what so ever. Except I never did get that feeling. Actually, I've never had that feeling in this pose. I've never felt panic or fear in any yoga pose. Instead of fighting fear induced anxiety, I ended up fighting tears. My eyes welled up and spilled down the sides of my face. My throat is the first thing affected when tears attack. It closes up and I can't talk. I can barely even breath. Losing the ability to squeak out a word makes me furious, which in turn, makes me cry harder. It's usually pretty ugly. I wrinkled my brow and wondered why I was suddenly crying in fish pose and still able to breath.

It is not that I purposefully or willfully refuse to recognize a dangerous situation as maybe being dangerous. And don't think for a minute that I am not scared in these situations. It's just that stubbornness is the rock, while fear becomes the scissors in this game. Stubbornness wins every time. I love supported fish pose. I practice that pose ALL of the time. I never once thought about how my throat was exposed or the dangers involved in exposing your throat. Now, all I can think about is that scene from Roadhouse where Patrick Swazye rips that guy's throat out with his bare hand. This should creep me out or make me shy away from poses that expose my throat. Instead, I find it slightly hilarious. That scene is ridiculous, though if you ask the guys I work with, they'll say that it is awesome, in the same way that Bill and Ted are awesome. I am comfortable in dangerous situations, at ease, in my element and even can relax enough to cry. 

So yeah, I'd probably still ride that roller coaster, because that's the whole point and there's something worthy of gratitude in this somewhere. You don't know how anything is going to end, so you might as well enjoy the ride. 

I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Mar 11, 2018 at 1:53pm UTC

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Last week, I woke up at three AM from a dream where I was so angry at Michael for something to do with schedules and calendars. I got up and went to the bathroom, but when I crawled back into bed my brain was too hyped up to go back to sleep. I laid there raging and reliving various random moments of conflict and how I should have said this instead of that. I kicked off all of the covers because I was hot and flipped over to turn off my electric blanket. My period starts in three days. The dreams leading up to this have been off the chain. One night I put on eye makeup and it was perfect, but I only did one eye. The next night I tore my closet apart looking for my elephant skirt and was unable to find it. I know for sure that both were dreams because I am incapable of applying eye makeup let alone perfect eye makeup. I checked my closet and my elephant skirt is still there. 

I started watching the Masterpiece Theater show Breathless and there's this episode where an older woman discovers that her husband is having an affair with the secretary. She confronts him and so he takes her to the doctor where he bullies the doctor into prescribing some serious drugs because of her crazy menopausal symptoms. The woman makes a half hearted attempt to stab the secretary with a pair of scissors, is told she needs to get herself under control, and then overdoses on the prescription her husband forces the doctor to give her. There's a moment before she takes all of the pills when she's talking to an older nurse who is telling her to get her shit together when the woman says that she still wished she'd stabbed that girl with the scissors. It is the most frustrating episode I have seen so far because they keep playing off this woman's rage at her husband's infidelity as just symptoms of menopause. Then I got so mad about the whole episode that I picked up my iPad and threw it across the gym. 

I did not.

I had been basking in a skinny phase for the past two months. I caught my reflection in the mirror while teaching a yoga class and thought "Oh! I look skinny!". A week later my body turned into a bloated up bullfrog. I again caught my reflection while teaching a class and thought "Who is that fat girl teaching yoga? Oh...it's me." I closed my eyes to the reflection and never looked back at the mirror again. Saturday, we found ourselves on the Plaza and Michael sent me to Anthropolgie while he and the Cabbage went to look for shoes. They found me just as I was checking out. The Cabbage put her chin on the counter and told the check out lady "I'm going to be a big sister!" The woman then looked right at my belly and said "CONGRATULATIONS!" I didn't say a word. I just smiled and nodded my head. When the transaction was complete, the woman walked my bag around to hand to me. I guess so I wouldn't strain myself picking up the bag containing two shirts from the counter? It was weird and not the first time someone has congratulated me on a pregnancy. 

So, you would think that all of this plus a time change would make me a very ragey person today. Except I knew that all of this plus a time change would set me on a murderous rampage and I made some changes to my routine. First of all, I left work early on Friday and cleaned the house. I mean, scrub under furniture and wash the curtains kind of cleaning of the house. Then, I had Michael hang some shelves in my room which allowed me to free up my yoga storage box. I swapped places with the yoga box and my hamper, placed a blanket and meditation pillow on the box and BOOM! Meditation space. The next thing I did was probably the most difficult. I changed my alarm clock setting from 5:50 AM to 5:17 AM and then I got up out of bed when that 5:17 alarm went off in the morning. Here's what the usual routine generally looks like: wake up around 4 something AM, let the dog out, the cat comes in and drools on me, fall back to sleep for an hour before the alarm clock goes off, seriously consider calling in sick to work, seriously wonder if Michael is getting up, go make sure Michael is up and getting into the shower, crawl back into bed until he's done, seriously consider calling in sick, begrudgingly get up and into the shower.

This morning, I did twenty minutes of meditation and brewed a cup of hot ginger lemon water to sip on while Michael was in the shower. Am I tired? Of course, I am. But I am not as tired as I was before starting this routine. That whole going back to sleep for an hour before having to get up for real was killing me and my sleep inertia was all kinds of disrupted. Every time I fell back asleep, I was resetting my sleep cycle to think I was at the beginning of my sleep cycle, making it harder to get up when it was actually time to get up. Messing with your sleep inertia also leaves you groggy and disoriented for up to four hours after waking this way. I am still bloated. I still had some weird ass dreams last night. But! BUT!!! I feel less likely to punch someone in the face today. 

That' something.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Shake Shack!!!! #Boston #shakeshack

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Last night I had a dream that I was over at Terry's. Every one was there and Terry's house had shrunk to the size of a studio apartment. It was crazy which isn't really all that unusual. In fact I think that all the things that occurred in my dream are things that seem totally natural for an evening at Terry's. We were celebrating Bradley's birthday. Bradley had made tacos, but by the time I got there, most of the tacos were gone. I decided to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with two pieces of a fresh loaf of gluten free bread, also made by Bradley. I pulled out the jelly from Terry's fridge and then I had to climb over a bunch of people to retrieve the peanut butter from the living room. I don't think Terry would keep his peanut butter in his living room in real life, but maybe.

I made it back to the kitchen with the peanut butter and set it on the counter. Then I got distracted because someone was asking me a question. When I turned back around, Luke was just finishing up making my peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me. I told him thank you and he didn't have to do that. He responded with a shrug. Then I looked at the sandwich and noticed that the jelly was green. I said "Oh...I was hoping for a berry flavored jelly, but apple is fine. Wait. Is that relish?" Luke looked at the sandwich and said "No...wait. I think that's relish. Oh my God! I put pickle relish on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich!" Then we laughed and laughed. And I woke up. 

It was a pretty hilarious dream. In fact, I woke up laughing and when I think about it, that look on Luke's face when he realized what he'd done, I start to giggle. Also, the absurdity of a pickle relish and peanut butter sandwich is the best ridiculous thing since Talaura's bread sandwich. The comedy in my life seems to center around sandwiches. Today I am thankful for absurdities. From Chris's hot dog straws to Talaura's bread sandwich. Talaura has these two pictures of her in Sarge. One is serious and the other one looks like they're both laughing. When she shows them to you in order and says "look! Sarge is telling me a joke!" it is ridiculous and hilarious. Todd, do you remember Chris's Schindler's bit about just eating one more shrimp? We laughed until we cried over this. The other day, Michael asked Alexa to pay him a compliment but then she announced that she didn't have that skill. When I asked her and told her to install that skill, She told me something about how I'm good at facts or something. Immediately after this, Michael asked Alexa again to pay him a compliment and she said "Ummm. I'm not sure about that." The Cabbage and I busted out laughing. 

I am thankful for those absurd and ridiculous and hilarious moments.

Maybe I should host a sandwich party. 

I am thankful for a text from Amy telling me a story about C-Rip and how C-Rip was talking about visiting me in Kansas City. That she was going to ride with me on my scooter. She'd bring her own helmet. It was the sweetest thing and it came to me on a particularly difficult day when I was fighting demons. I am thankful for the staycation I took yesterday. I finished my library book. I am thankful for the promise of a lazy weekend. I am thankful for you. 

TINY BIRDS

Robin

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I dreamed of the tiniest bird I had ever seen that was not a hummingbird. He was the shape and coloring of a sparrow, but he was no bigger than my thumb. I remember marveling at the size of him and how he pecked at some bread crumbs in the palm of my hand, but I remember nothing else about the dream. You should know that there are several sources on the internet containing dream interpretations and what it means to dream of birds. Because the internet is full of every thing from the most brilliant to the most ridiculous. You can find anything on there except your lost keys. 

I only looked at the top three websites that came up in my search for what it means to dream of birds. All of them said about the same thing. They all agreed that birds are symbols of your goals and aspirations, transcendence and liberation, joy and love. Dreaming of birds in various actions can mean anything from an attack on all of those things to an abundance of all of those things. Dreaming of different kinds of birds mean different kinds of things. Magpies are a symbol of dissatisfaction and disappointment. Owls are what you'd expect them to be, symbols of wisdom and knowledge. Dreaming of chickens means you lack will power or are behaving cowardly. Unless it is a dream about a rubber chicken. That one means that you need to lighten up and stop taking things too seriously. 

The only one of those three websites I visited to mention sparrows said that sparrows represent "the ordinary but living parts of you that are special." That gave me some pause. Did that teeny tiny sparrow represent those ordinary parts of me that are actually special? Or does it mean that my living parts are special, but also ordinary? What does that even mean? How can something be ordinary and special? So I edited my internet search to be more specific. Several sources say that the sparrow is a symbol of dignity and pride but also innocence, restlessness and freedom. Most of the sources online say that dreaming about a sparrow is a positive thing most of the time. It can mean anything from being delighted in the simple joys and memories created by my family to a premonition of bad news to come. 

Reading about dream interpretation is trippy and it is very much like trying to diagnose your minor illness through the internet. I've looked at enough pictures to know that the bug bite on my neck is in fact a mosquito bite and not from bed bugs. Any one who reads this blog on regular basis could tell that I often delight in the simple joys of anything. Right now, I think it is particularly hilarious that the cat who used to curl up in Josephine's unused dog bed, now like to curl up in Josephine's dog crate. Now Josephine can found curled up in the dog bed she never even looked at until the cat came around. You know what was truly remarkable about that sparrow in my dream? His size. Small is not ordinary and maybe not special either, but it can be remarkable.  

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Goose

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Time changes always mess me up. Even when I've planned for them and I know they are coming. That first night when Mom and I were in Ireland, I woke up and realized that Mom was also awake. I asked her for the time and she said "5:30 AM". I decided that I might as well go ahead and get up and do some yoga and was about half way through my practice when I noticed the time on my phone said that it was really just after midnight Ireland time. I announced this to Mom and said "I'm going back to bed." We both did and then woke up at a more reasonable time a few hours later. Of course that was a five hour time change, but apparently I handle one hour time changes about the same. 

The time change and the transition into Spring have made for some really interesting dreams. One night I dreamed that I was out hiking. I walked to a place where I had to climb onto a log in order to paddle over to an island made of cork. The ground was soft and squishy under my hiking boots and covered with moss and tiny ferns. I made my way to the visitor center which was in a small shack next to a water tower, both made of cork. The water tower leaked. The old man at the visitor center told me that they had a problem with couples coming to the island and stealing bear cubs to take home as pets. The bears on the island were angry and the campground was now surrounded by a bear proof fence that was locked at night. I woke up before I decided what to do next. The next night, I dreamed that I went to work without pants bringing a whole new level to Casual Friday. When my boss saw me, he said "Cindy. You're not wearing pants." I scowled at him and replied "You're not even supposed to be here today so shut up." Then I tugged my T-shirt down a little to be sure it was covering my granny-panty clad ass. I don't know what happened next because I woke up thinking it was Friday, but it was really Thursday.

This has been a week of change. That Patty Loveless song about saying goodbye has been playing in the back of my mind for days. That song always makes me cry, but it is the line about 'life is about changing' that has been on loop in my brain, the words circling around and around like an airplane banner. Often those changes come in subtle quite ways, sneaking in so that they are hardly noticed, like the slow growth of green that starts to spread over things with the coming of Spring. These are the changes that we crave without fearing. The bigger, more sudden changes, like a snow storm after a week of 75 degree weather, are the ones that leave us slightly timid to venture forward. This is the time of year when I am reminded to embrace both kinds of changes. I am reminded to be mindful that change happens every day and that it is how I react to the change that is important. I am thankful for the changes of this week. I am thankful for changes to come. I am thankful for crazy dreams that hint of adventures to come and an acquired boldness.

I am thankful for a turn in the weather because we promised the Cabbage weeks ago that we would go camping this weekend. We are headed to the Joplin KOA with plans to visit the George Washington Carver National Park. I am thankful that my mom will be able to join us for the day. I am thankful for vegetarian sloppy joes. I am thankful for the moments I have had on my yoga mat. I am thankful that Josephine didn't attack Marguerite (the chicken) who escaped while Michael was refilling the chickens' water. I am thankful that Marguerite was more interested in the new water than she was being chased around the yard. I am thankful for moments of stillness. I am thankful for you.

Hope your weekend is full of warmth and that you have a truly Thankful Friday.