Of Dreams and Figs and Great Pyrenees

Probably any piece of writing that begins with “I had a dream last night…” should best be left in the dreamer’s journal. But the dream I had a few nights ago stayed with me and, in writing about it in my journal the next morning, reawakened something I’ve been missing in my daily life.

In the dream, we were wandering around a small town like Asheville or Idyllwild or another artsy community made up of sweet boutiques, cool cafes, and at least one small, well-stocked bookstore, and I noticed no one was wearing a mask. Suddenly guilt-stricken, I covered my nose and mouth with one hand, ducked my head and exclaimed, “Oh, I’m so sorry, so sorry. I forgot my mask.”

“Never mind” a fellow said. “We don’t need masks here. There’s no disease. We’re all safe.”

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Notes From My Journal — Day 32

I have been sitting at my morning table for the entire first cup of coffee, having read the final pages of Long Life, one last, beautiful Mary Oliver essay, “Where I Live,” and two ending poems, and have not written a word here, until this, explaining to myself, not why I have not entered into this morning’s dialogue with the page, but just that I have not.

Out the north-facing window, I gaze into the alley with its fences, the draping brown fronds of the banana tree in the neighbor’s yard, the telephone pole with its nest of black wires I try to block with the spider plant hung in the window. Sometime during my morning reverie I expect to see a squirrel or two along the fence, but not yet on this sunny Thursday that promises another warm day to tempt us outside, donning our masks, keeping our distance.

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A writer and her familiar

I found the bathtub drain cover on the bedroom rug this morning, and the sweet little ceramic bowl from my morning yoga/meditation altar under the bed. I’ve had to delay my morning coffee and give up morning journal writing at my kitchen table. My desk is not my own, neither is my bed, the couch, or that same kitchen table where I used to write first thing in the morning.

Orlando has come to live with me.

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