The Dream

I'm still in the throes of the dream I had this morning.  It was like a combination of every bad dream I've ever had.  I was a child.  I was an adult.  My mom was there. And my sister.  And my Dad.  At times my boys.  Even my BFF was featured in a phone call.

There was a tornado.  I was at my mom's with her and my sister.  We watched the sky storm and clouds gather in amazing  black, greys and purples.  The Weather Channel was on.  I was in my mom's house calling updates through the window while she and my sister corraled the animals.  My boys were running in and out of the livingroom "Mom!  Mom! Moming" me to death.  The Weather Channel showed two storms combining.  Outside the funnel began dropping.  Inside the child me, my sister and mom all huddled in the bathtub together.  When the tornado was gone we went looking for my Dad as if he were a wayward puppy.  We found him on the back deck uninjured but no less dead.  And I knew it would happen like that. 

In the aftermath of the tornado there were huge fires.  Magically, the three of us and Ben were at a favorite steak house in my hometown that had caught fire.  We broke in to get the dogs out.  ???  I found a steno pad with the owner's number and was busily calling him when an angry man started berating me for being on the phone.  I cursed at him and kept on with my business.  There was a lot of frenzied activity and fire putting out going on.  Soon I'm about a quarter mile away looking on the scene.  The restaurant is in the middle of a field of ripened hay looking very much like 3 red barns clustered together.  There was singeing around the edges and vibrant pastoral colors.  The adult me felt a very physical craving for my camera. 

Then the scene changed to one in the center of town.  Everywhere there was devestation. All over were the dull greys and browns of collapsed buildings and flying dust surrounded by the vibrant green hills of springtime.  I was in a 50s style diner that I think was made out of a bus or train car or something.  I was on the phone with my BFF retelling the events of the night/morning.  I don't know where my mom was but my sister was outside in the street talking with the milling people.  As I walked to the steps leading outside I glanced over the hills.  There I saw a jumbo jet flying very low and very upside down right towards us. 

The dream shifts into that frantic slow motion disaster speed that only dreams and real-life tragedies can somehow manage.  I dropped my cell and began looking for my sister.  I jumped clear of the diner as it is demolished in a fireball of plane and screaming people.  My sister is doing that looking-over- the-shoulder backwards run from the movies.  She's trying to outrun a crashing jet!  I scream to her to run to the side!  Like a riptide!!!!  Get. Out. Of. It's. Way!!!!! 

And we're fine.  But the world is a flaming, smoking, disaster.  And I need to find a bathroom.

I don't think it takes a genius to see the symbolism there.  Tragedy is surrounding me.  My friend Sarah is suffering a recurrence of her breast cancer.  Susan is waiting on her biopsy results after a bad scan.  My own yearly scan is this morning.  Everyone I know is in financial turmoil.  There is devestation everywhere I look these days.  And beauty.  Undeniable beauty that I feel a physical need to document.  And we come out on the other side.  We're fine. 

I'll hold on to that.  We'll be fine. 

I do wonder where my husband was, though...