Take me to the river

Posted on | August 19, 2008 | 7 Comments

I try to take the long view. All the headlong rushing towards the next thing makes me so very tired, but a few moments rocking on the front porch, watching the shadows lengthen with the setting sun turns me around to face myself. That’s where all the rushing originates, inside of me, so it’s on me to slow down and let it all be still.

I just woke from a dream of news that four year old twins I know (grandchildren of someone I work with) had died. I realized it because I saw their angel-ghosts, two beautiful children with wings hugging each other at the top of a hill. But the twins I know are both girls, and this set was just one of those girls and a boy. After I saw them having their winged embrace, I rushed to my computer to look for news, and found it.

Then the dream switched scenes as dreams so easily do, to Lila and I walking single file (she in front, me behind) next to a swift river. It only occurs to me now that I should have been closer to the water and holding her hand. I was explaining to her how fast the water was moving and telling her to move to the other side of the path when she turned and began to walk backwards. Then she stepped out onto the surface of the water, taking several steps as if it was solid and I yelled to her to turn back, hopeful that she would be able to keep walking on water. But then she took another step towards shore and then sank and disappeared. I woke up immediately.

Half an hour later and my heartbeat is still out of whack and a cup of coffee never tasted so good as this cup of coffee tastes. I’m sitting here in the dark listening to the crickets and the earliest of the early birds, the cat snoring softly in the rocking chair, and Lila turning over safely in her bed.

Needless to say I just spent some time looking up dream definitions. The general analysis having something to do with a disconnection to life and society, with aspects of my child that I wish I had in me (fearlessness, trust), a phase of my life coming to a close, stepping into a new flow, loss of my own identity, and being unable to recognize myself.

That all seems plausible in a loosely constructed, outline sort of way. I’ll know more after my lunch meeting today. This day may be the first day of a whole new life.

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