Dreaming

I meant to write about a dream I had last night. No, not the Toby Keith one...that was years ago. And not the Mike Rowe one...that's not the sort of thing one speaks of in public. Heh.

No, last night I had a lovely, if peculiar, dream,.

Let me preface this, if I may, with my afternoon. Bird had quiet time, I had a shower and a nap. Yes, yes, it's a strenuous life and it's a wonder I don't waste away to nothing. Ahem.

I like to sing in the shower. Well, to be honest, I like to sing anywhere. It can annoy others, so I try to curtail it. The shower, though, is the place to sing, isn't it? I mean, even if you sound like an injured cat wrestling with a rabid hedgehog in the midst of a badger war, you sound good in the shower!

There is something about the combination of afternoon shadows (I don't turn on the light if I can help it) and running water (I had a more descriptive passage there, but it sounded a little...ahem...nasty) that I find soothing.

So yesterday, I was singing in the shower and felt moved to make up a little ditty on the spot. Being a made-up song, I don't remember all of it, but it basically expressed the sentiment that the water was washing away my ghosts. The things that haunt me, plague me, and generally make my internal life on not worth looking at all that often. Even I don't want to look at it, and I live with it all the time. So I was singing an impromptu song to some imagined person I called "you", and told that "you" that they couldn't hurt me any more because I was washing them away.

I am washing you away
Washing away your anger
Your anger can't hurt me any more
I am clean

For "anger" substitute hatred, insecurity, ignorance, and some other negative emotions, and you get the gist of my shower song. It was oddly cathartic. I wish I could relate the tune...it was sweet, lilting, and something I'd like to repeat, if only I can remember it. Water cleans so much more than the physical self.

I mostly dried off, wrapped my head in a towel, and took a nice nap. Bird and I went to Borders...I almost always go on Thursday, but usually alone. I didn't want to miss this week because I wanted to order a couple of books, and we needed an evening out. "Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay" and "Naptime is the New Happy Hour", if you're interested. It probably sounds dull to you, but I like my night out at the bookstore. It's a little slice of heaven - I am surrounded by books, the staff know me and, what's more, are nice to me, and it's one of my safe places, a haven from the regular world. Also, they have coffee shakes. With real coffee. And bagels. With raisins in. Who can resist?? I get a lot of work done there, when I don't have Bird to ride herd on. Last night, I just yacked with friends (I actually go for a discussion group...the bookstore setting is a bonus) and half minded Bird and his friend Noodle while they colored and behaved like...well, like little boys in public, but slightly better.

I typed for a while last night, so I got to bed fairly late - one-thirty in the morning late. No wonder I had an odd dream.

So, to the point of this whole blathering blog. The dream,

I dreamed I was a tree in the moonlight. I could feel my roots reaching deep into the blessed earth, my taproot deepest of all, plunging to her heart and connecting her to mine. I could feel my bark, deeply grooved, wrinkled, glorious. I was an old, old tree, standing along on a hill. My branches spread around me, silvered in the moonlight. Above me was a clear sky, full moon surrounded by the sparking bright stars. A tiny stirring of breeze tangled in my twigs and hung there for a moment before wresting itself free and moving on. Small, nesting things in my branches rustled and were still, settling deeper into their sleep and small, furred and feathered dreams. Holding them safe above the ground felt right. Knowing that I gave them shade from the sun, a place to shelter from storms, nourishment and nurturing felt right. In the stillness of this night, I felt the light pouring over me like water. It seeped into every groove, silver-gilt every glorious bump; I steeped in it, and touching the light, I touched everything else that was bathed in the same fashion, and so I was the ground beneath me and the living things in me, and all the world around me. I was the stars in their infinite burning cold and the dark emptiness around them. I was the molten heart of the earth, that roiling hot brightness that finds its way to the surface and bursts forth with destructive/creative joy. And I was a tree. A tree in the moonlight, looking out at the world as trees do, never sleeping, watching the tides of time ebb and flow, awash in their currents but never caught up in them, always steady and sure.

Nice dream, no?