Dreaming

I'm watching dogs sleep. The German Shepherd curling his lip and making little yips. The older Aussie's legs twitching and paws moving like she's running. Occasionally there's a snore. I wonder, of course, what they are dreaming. Is it the dream I wait for? A dream that has not come. At least I don't remember if it has.

"On my own, pretending he's beside me. All alone I walk with him 'til morning. Without him I feel his arms around me, and when I lose my way, I close my eyes and he has found me."

-Les Miserables

I want to dream of Tom. Instead I dream of nothing.

I have had a series of dreams throughout my life of a place that seems so absolutely real that it must exist in this world. Time breathes here in this place of dreaming. The dream never repeating. Every few years I visit again. A bridge over a river surrounded by tall trees and a little natural history museum by it. I am at total peace here. At first it is alive. I stand on the bridge and watch people rafting in the river below. Others look around the museum. Each time, fewer people are here. I age in the dream also. The normal passage of time. I arrive again to find it abandoned and derelict and I am heartbroken. In the final dream that I remember there is hope. No one is here, but the museum looks to be under construction. I wander inside to find it being renovated and I can't wait to return. I haven't been back. Not for many years and truly I long to see it again.

I've told Tom of these dreams and I don't believe anyone else. This is a place he would go I think. Every interesting rock, leaf, twisted piece of wood or seed pod he found, he would bring to show me its beauty. Even now there is dried gourd he found in the yard sitting on the dash of our car. There is a shell there too, likely in the glove box. A ceramic art bowl upstairs with a collection of some large marble-size as yet undefined objects he found in the yard that seem to have originated from the trees. There is so much of him around me. He was a collector and not of a single object or category. His interests varied and often overlapped with my own or if not, I could usually see the appeal in it. Sometimes its beauty was in the outside and sometimes it was a less tangible but equally real scientific beauty, a perfection of design. You might think that going through these collections will be painful, but I in fact look forward to it. What objects I found when searching for pictures for his memorial were intriguing and heartening. I will get to know him all over again.

I hope I dream of the river soon. I believe he is there waiting. Walking along the waters. Picking up pinecones or other assorted natural objects and slipping them into his pocket to show me later.

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The Painting

"River Rocks"

Amazingly, to me anyway, this river is just a few minutes outside of Sedona, Arizona. Incredibly lush and you could see the dry, craggy, red rock over the tree tops. Tom and I wandered through the water with our cameras for quite some time. It was cloudy when we first found the spot, so we came back later in the day when the sun peeked out. I loved the way the roots of these trees crawled their way over any obstacle to reach the water.