After lying in bed in a confusion of half waking dreams, my body hurting in the shape of a fish, there came a sentence so lucid I sat right up. Something will be taken from me in exchange for three acts of kindness. I got right out of bed and wrote it down.
I rarely remember a dream, and certainly nothing with both the clarity and the mystery of that sentence. What part of my brain talks like that and why can’t I get in there? A few more lines like that and surely I’d have a Pushcart Nomination by now.
Thing is, I would never have agreed to such a bargain, if bargain it was. What was taken has been gone almost three years. Acts of kindness are everywhere, traveling in schools like fish, but nothing fills the place where I am empty. Must I learn to love the absence? Gratitude instead of loss? I’m too old for that shit. Yes, I was lucky. We both were.
Late now. Sometimes before I sleep I think about you. The strange physical feeling after your memorial service. It took me a while to figure it out. “I’m alive,” is what it was, “I’m alive.”
Abigail, I once woke from a dream with the command, "Be alert to messages from me" echoing in my mind. The next day, I met a former priest who told me about a silent monastic community a few hours away and suggested I look into doing a retreat there. It changed my life.
We never know about these things, do we?
I am so much more fun in my dreams. And the world is cleaner. To be honest, I would rather have dreams with messages.
Your work is so lovely. It always makes me happy.