Respite

Today was a Seattle day up until about five o'clock. The sky was gray. The trees were green. The roads were damp. The air was cool and there was a strong smell of earth. And then there was a tornado warning issued for the Athens-Clarke County. I spent the next half hour or so in a closet.

Campus was empty when I dropped Brenden off to practice at the music building. There was, however, a truck dragging a trailer full of porta-potties around.

Back at the house, our neighbors' dogs (and birds?) were throwing fits next door. My GRE vocabulary study time was interrupted by yelps and whining as well as frenzied bird noises. Peregrination, peroration, prestidigitation, stultification.

I woke up this morning at ten-thirty grasping at the remnants of the dreams I had just left behind. I had dreamt of people I missed. People living eight hundred eighty two miles away. Living one thousand nine hundred fifty four miles away. Dead. I wanted so badly to go back to sleep and visit with those dead loved ones I could not call or write or email. We drove up to our old house, made the turn off Ferry Road and there they were, two great-uncles (brothers) sitting on our old porch in rocking chairs we never owned. It's strange. In my dreams, those that are dead in real life always know that they are dead or dying. Perhaps it's my mind reminding me this is temporary. It will not last. They will not last. They didn't.

I woke up and I wanted to shut out the light pouring in from the window. I was willing myself back to sleep but I was awake. I couldn't go back to sleep. And even if I had been able to, my great- uncles would have been gone; everyone I was visiting with last night and this morning was gone.

The strange thing about my desire to go back to my dreams was that these weren't normal dreams. These were anxiety-ridden nightmares. The people living one thousand nine hundred fifty four miles away were telling me they couldn't help me and left me in an empty parking lot as I frantically tried to figure out what I needed to do (though now I can't remember what it was I needed help with). The people living eight hundred eighty two miles away were trying to keep me hidden from others trying to kill me. And the people no longer living were telling me they were going to die as they rocked back and forth in the rocking chairs on the porch of my post- Hurricane Ike childhood home.

I woke up whimpering like a frightened child and I still wanted to go back to those dreams.

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
-Jodi Picoult