Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

Another rainy day and the business of the morning has gotten nothing at all done. Contractor, painters, floor guys and movers. It is so clear how much work I am giving myself if I want to get the floors redone. Maybe I understand why the last folks didn't do it. I have two days more than three weeks to get the house in moving condition. It would be great to come home to new floors and new paint on some of the walls.

Early this morning I had a dream of David that left me with a sense memory of myself before he died. I awoke to the feeling which was so ordinary, so normal -- as if I was whole again. It was the first morning after a bad fever breaks and I didn't want to move a muscle to hold on to the memory. I am sad that my only touch with this well being is a dream, but I am grateful for the dream, grateful for the visit.

We were ready to return home from a vacation. I had the feeling of a week spent at a beach -- the jersey shore, Fire Island. That rested, warm, awake feeling. There were pieces of my mother's house -- the carpeted hallway upstairs and a stroller in the bathroom, even though I can't ever remember a stroller in her bathroom -- where I was. I was in the bathroom and David was there too. We were in front of a mirror and one or the other of us was looking into it. I noticed that David had hair on top of his head. I said nothing about it, but wondered if I was dreaming about the 80's when he was still maintaining he last of the hair on top of his head, or if he had preferred this look as he was visiting me. (I knew this was a dream. I knew I was dreaming, but this time, not like last time, I did not say anything about it.) I threw my arm around his neck and said, very dramatically, "I want you to live, to live, to live." Very Tallulah Bankhead. And I felt such a wash of well-being. I was me before last year. I was happy. I was whole. I was aware of the glory of that feeling. It was very silly and romantic and very much like ourselves in most of our private lives. David asked if he still "had me," "Do I still have you?" And I answered, "Body and soul, body and soul." With such a smile. With such love.

And that was it. The respite that I asked for two days ago. For moments, I was painless. I remembered happy. Not for long but for real.