I slept in my contact last night so it feels like I didn’t sleep at all. It took me a moment to realize that I could see in places I normally couldn’t – the curtain soft in blue light, the books on the nightstand, cellphone and the woken reminder that one of my dearest friends is probably packing the rest of her things, sipping coffee and looking at a place that has held her and spit her up and held her. i wonder if she feels the chapter of her life that has been covered in notes. I wonder if she feels she’s flipping a new page. She must. So much has changed in the past few months – for her and me. I don’t know how things will be different. I only know they will
We had a wonderful dinner for her last night. I broke a billion dishes (not on purpose), we spilled beer (not on purpose), my face got flushed with cooking and running back and forth for more knives and drinks and bread. People were in different rooms of my house talking and holding small conversations – everything felt warm and full.
Right now, I’m trying to explain things I don’t really have the energy for. My mind feels out of practice, rejecting the words even before I put them down. It knows what they are, what they mean, but I’d rather take my contacts out, fling them on the nightstand, in trash and look at how blurry everything is.
***
I had a lot of dreams last night. They are all jumbled together. snippets of deep deep dreams from the middle of the night, snippets from earlier in the morning. I remember being asked by 4 people I’d never met before to go on a journey with them. There wasn’t a lot of speaking, but I knew what they were asking me was important, that I had been chosen. We weren’t allowed to have a lot of things with us. Just our bodies and the clothes on our backs. No one had any packs. We stepped out of a small hut into the morning. It felt cool and blue like walking under a sea sky. The man in charge was tall, white scruff on his face, brown hat, intense sort of eyes. I remember being leery of him and I knew I couldn’t fall behind the others. We were a ways from the hut when I realized I had forgotten something. Could I go back and get it, I asked. I would hurry back with the group, I wouldn’t be long. I’m not sure if i knew what I was going back for, but he looked at me and held out a book and told me I could go back.
I started back up the hill, hurrying, only finally I looked down into my hands at the book he had given me. It was my journal. He had taken it for me because he saw that I left it. Despite the fact that we weren’t allowed to have possessions, I was allowed this one thing. And I said to myself, “yes, this is exactly what I was going back for. This is exactly what I needed.” I turned around, not even making it to the hut and I hurried back to the trail.
***
Sophia who will be 7 years old in December said to her mom last night not to worry about Lindsey. “Don’t cry, mama. She’s free now.”
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