A Dream

I was driving down the highway in a small car, to Michigan, I think.

(There are a lot of reasons for my destination to have been Michigan. The most obvious is that yesterday someone protested a Facebook quiz that identified Michigan as her ideal state, which got me to thinking about how much I love Michigan, and about a wonderful long week-end we spent there with all the kids, and about Chicago Son's exuberance up on the dunes at Sleeping Bear. Another possibility? I was in Michigan when he died. Another? Someone else I know goes to Michigan almost every week to visit an ill family member.)

Suddenly I realized that I couldn't see. I thought that I was falling asleep at the wheel, and shook my head a couple of times. My vision would clear for a second and then cloud over again. I could feel the car running onto the ground at the edge of the road, and I thought that I should pull back onto the highway, and then I thought that I should let the car glide to a stop in the grass. But since I couldn't see anything, I realized that I had no control and couldn't choose.

(I don't think that this part requires much interpretation. No vision. No control. No choices.)

Next thing I knew, the car was smashed into a zillion pieces scattered all over the highway, and I was sitting in the seat, kind of rocking back and forth, in the middle of the road. The police came and I found myself in a huge barn. I had lost my wallet and a dragon mask that Gregarious Son has hanging on his wall, something he treasures from a family vacation in Florida many years ago. I don't know why I was taking it to Michigan, but I was frantic about losing it. A police officer, a woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt and making dinner in another part of the barn, showed to me to a closet in the barn where they kept evidence. Behind the huge and glossy mahogany door was another set of smaller doors, and behind each of them another set, and behind each of them another. Each set of doors opened magically to the next set of even smaller doors.

(Shattered life. Can't find the pieces. Behind each "answer" is another mystery. But the mysteries, the questions, are treasures, secreted behind beautifully polished doors.)

I find myself standing out side the barn, using a cell phone I don't recognize. I think it belongs to Chicago Son. I am calling the Quiet Husband, who says he has not yet left to pick me up. It will take him hours to get there. I am beside myself; I want to get out of there and go home. I need someone to help me.

(A couple of days ago I received an email from someone who said he really didn't know how to take all of this away, and then offered me a few good suggestions. It was oddly comforting, to have someone I treasure, someone who is nearly 80 years old, acknowledge that there is no solution. If he doesn't know, then no one does, I had thought to myself.)

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This dream is from early this morning. I had decided to try to go back to sleep after waking up around 6:00. I kind of wish I had stayed awake.