Every Day

I woke up many times in the night. I ate way too much food yesterday, and I ate foods which cause intestinal distress, and I paid for it, but I didn't sit down here this morning to write about that.  When I woke this morning, I was dreaming about a man I have never met but knew quite well in my dream and with whom I was in love.  In a room reminiscent of an old, plush movie theatre with muted red draperies and velvety seats, several people had congregated. They were there for me and for him. He was supposed to have met me there, and when he didn't show up, everyone in the room became concerned. I was near the stage, pacing, with the other people congregated in small groups, their worried faces speaking words I could not hear.  I turned around, and he was coming toward me. His hair was black and cut fashionably though it looked unkempt. He had on khaki pants, a white shirt, and a black jacket. He said, "I'm so sorry, Margaret. I..." At that point, I put my arms around him and just held him. He embraced me, and then I held him tighter. He responded likewise. We started moving, rocking at first and then slow dancing.  We did not talk.  I finally looked at him and said, "Baby, I love you. We all love you. You see everyone here? They love you. We can get all of this sorted out. This with your father.  You'll see."  He started crying, and then reached inside an inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a white envelope with my name written on it. He then ripped open the envelope which contained a letter and a small baggie with white pills.  The letter was a suicide note outlining his plans and telling me goodbye and explaining why he felt he had to take his life.  I could see the writing and a few words. "I'm sorry.  Digitalis. My father. I'm done. I want you to be okay."  We were both crying then, and he said, "I couldn't do it. I was ready, and I heard your voice calling out to me, and I stopped. I've already told my father I'm done with the business. I'm done with it." As I was waking, I just kept seeing his grateful face.  I thought to myself: " This is what love is. Maybe I have never known how to love before." There was a sense of hopefulness in my body as I roused myself awake and headed to the bathroom.  The man in the dream was attractive, but he wasn't someone I think I would be interested in. He was slightly overweight and younger than me.  He was like someone walking out of a foggy forest canopy into the blinding light of an unknown place.  He knew I loved him, and he knew I saved his life.  I wonder, sitting here this morning, if he was me. I read somewhere once that we are the characters we dream about, and perhaps, he was some part of me.  God knows what he said, how he looked at me, how he'd had an epiphany about his life and its value all spoke to me. The part that was not me was the suicide part.  I have never wanted to take my life.  Of course, I spent 10 years of my life working with individuals who had attempted suicide or were contemplating it, so I think that factors in. I think it is representative of the career part of me.  Perhaps I am wanting to return to work, but I am not sure. I want to get better.  That I know.  Maybe that was the hurting me (him) facing the me (the actual me) who wants to help me work through all of these issues that still haunt me at age 60.  I don't have much time left on Earth--at least not as much as I had when I arrived here 60 years ago unless changes in technology still find me here at age 120, but that is not likely.  As Andy says in The Shawshank Redemption: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

My Grandmother's Love Letters by Hart Crane

My Grandmother’s Love Letters

Hart Crane, 1899 - 1932

There are no stars tonight 
But those of memory. 
Yet how much room for memory there is 
In the loose girdle of soft rain. 

There is even room enough 
For the letters of my mother’s mother, 
Elizabeth, 
That have been pressed so long 
Into a corner of the roof 
That they are brown and soft, 
And liable to melt as snow. 

Over the greatness of such space 
Steps must be gentle. 
It is all hung by an invisible white hair. 
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. 

And I ask myself: 

“Are your fingers long enough to play 
Old keys that are but echoes: 
Is the silence strong enough 
To carry back the music to its source 
And back to you again 
As though to her?”

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand 
Through much of what she would not understand; 
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof 
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

 

Carry

I watched a little of the Free Minds Book Club tonight. The book they chose to discuss was The Things They Carried.  I want to write about it. I felt such deep conviction and emotion as I watched even though the comments and thoughts did not seem to reflect the book. At least these incarcerated men chose to read this book and to openly share their thoughts.  I had so much I wanted to say, but I am wiped out now. Cried too much.  Only 55 degrees in here. Wanted to go to a hotel. Husband said no reason for that. Stayed here.  Pissed off and cold.

Home From Nashville. No heat in the house.

Just a few pics of my sweet grandbabies. It is 50 degrees in here. Too cold to do much.

Life Without Facebook, cont.

I had all of the pictures from my phone transferred to discs (or is that disks? I'm going with disks). Now, I can start deleting photos from my phone to free up some space for--guess?--more photos! My phone is very old (Samsung S3), and it is out of storage, so I can't put any apps on it, but when I delete these 3,880 photos off, I will probably have some room. What I am trying to figure out now is how to transfer them directly to my blog and how to delete them. So far, I have only learned how to transfer them to my desktop and then to my blog. I am not completely computer illiterate, but I am always fearful to try something thinking I may lose my pictures or delete my blog or something, so I am apprehensive to try to do things I have not been shown how to do and have never learned how to do. So, I'll share some pics today.

It's been a low-key morning. I didn't sleep well last night and have been very tired all day. I have been reading more of The Naked and The Dead, playing Solitaire on my phone, and I cooked a nice lunch--baked lemon pepper cod, herbed rice, and a stir fry medley of veggies (yellow squash, onion, red pepper, broccoli, sliced green onion, and cilantro). I'm still really bummed that I can't taste much, and what I can taste, does not taste like it once did. More about that at another time. I don't feel like getting into it today.

Flowers

Trying to figure out how to post on my blog again. It's been a long time. Sanja and Wes came to visit this past weekend, and Sanja brought me flowers. She gave me some for my birthday, and I told her how much I love getting flowers and how infrequently I get them. I think she was listening. It was sweet of her to remember and to bring me a bouquet of flowers.

This is my second day of no FB. It's been raining all day, and normally there is nothing I like much better than an all day rain, but today, it is just enhancing the loneliness and low mood. I don't feel very inspired to do anything. I don't want to read, and I don't want to clean anything up, and I don't want to make anything, and I don't want to call anyone, and I don't want to watch a movie. I guess I will just go get in bed. Too early to drink. I did figure out that I can email myself a picture from my phone and then save it to my computer. I can then upload the picture from my computer to my blog. I couldn't figure out how to load to my blog directly from my phone.

Snagging an aeon