I had two dreams last night. In one of them, I was visiting the only house where my mother, father, brother, and I lived together before my parents divorced. I walked down a hallway, turned to the right, and found myself in a room I didn’t recognize. It looked like an old office or maybe a newsroom with old wooden desks and swivel chairs. I don’t remember this, I thought in the dream. But I kept going. In the next room was a recording studio, all warm wood paneling and glass. A blond woman …
everyday life
Quarantine by Numbers
33 – The number of days we’ve been in isolation, at home, no longer interacting with the real world. The last day before the world shut down and we were told to stay home, the kids didn’t have school. It was a three-day weekend and that Friday we met my mom at the movies to see Onward. The movie theater wasn’t busy, but we ran into our neighbors at the one o’clock showing. I resisted the urge not to say how crazy this is, to say more than “It’s so good to see you.” Already, the grocery stores …
Everything is Normal, Nothing is Normal
My dreams lately have been filled with missing things, about things that are just out of reach. I can’t find my car. I can’t find a store at the mall. I misplaced my dinner. I’m waiting in the salon chair and no one will cut my hair. I wake feeling haunted, wipe the sleep from my eyes, and try not to think too deeply about what I just dreamt. I don’t have to think deeply. I know what it means. Everything is normal. Nothing is normal. Each morning, I still find my way to the couch, …
What We Have is Today
Now that it’s spring, when I sit in the morning dark, I can often hear birds singing. I think of them waking with song, their voices rising in the darkness, their faith that the light will shine again. For them, it’s instinct, the time of year when everything comes alive again, including them. They have so much to look forward to: nest building and baby making, tending their own square inches of home. They don’t ask questions or wonder if maybe they should be doing something else. They are just …
Things Take Time: March Recap
At the end of each month, I’ve been reading over my journal entries with a highlighter in my hand. I spend most mornings writing a couple of pages, working my thoughts out or trying to capture what I’m feeling that day. Usually, day after day of writing, a theme starts to emerge. I say the same things over and over, and as I reread what I’ve written, those are the things to pay attention to (and highlight). What I wrote about most in March is depth—how hungry my soul is for deeper things, how …