Dreams

Last night, I had a huge sequence of dreams. And since I have nothing to do, and rarely dream like this anymore, I figured I should write them down.

In the first one, I am sitting in a glass house by a little river, talking to a girl I used to know.  It's dusk, and the purple shades make strange shadows in the house, but illuminate the world outside. She and I are sitting on the floor by the windows, talking quietly of her engagement, and my heart burns as I look out at the gentle river and the dark reflections of the trees in the seemingly still water.

I'm locked out of my old apartment since I had to give up my key earlier than was convenient for me. I have to go pick up my laundry off of campus. Next thing I know, I'm walking south of campus with my laundry basket, but it's impossibly heavy. I slowly drop a little pile of clothes every block or so, on the sidewalk as I go, but the basket doesn't get any lighter, even when there's only a few clothes left in it. I look behind me and see the clumps of my dirty laundry left all over and I feel ridiculously humiliated, and annoyed that I had to give them all up.

I'm in the old car of my brother-in-law's (Artax), in the backseat; Dave is  driving and in the front seat is a little boy who is going to take a test at the Testing Center on campus. It's last minute, and Dave only has stunted, unsharpened pencils.  I hand the kid my purple pencil sharpener that I have in my purse. Next moment, I'm standing by the Joseph Smith Building with the boy sitting on one of the benches. It's dusk again, although the light is tilted, golden, soft. A man passes by who I do not see, and I suddenly hear "Casper's Lullaby." I know I'm supposed to be helping the little boy get ready, but I collapse onto the cold sidewalk and start sobbing. The boy watches me, silently. And then I realize that he's supposed to take my Marriage Prep final for me and I feel shame that I'm not able to take it myself. The lullaby keeps on playing and I keep on crying, and the boy watches me without moving or making a sound.

These dreams all seem to center around one theme that is very obvious to me, which is kind of fun--I love when dreams make sense to me, have some kind of pattern. But ouch...

For anyone who cares, Keith Gravley has been in ICU all week, but as of this morning, he was released.

And my step-dad's father passed away this week, early Wednesday morning. He's been in and out of the hospital this past year. Fortunately, my step-dad was able to get to Minnesota and be with his dad a couple of hours before he died. My step-dad is going to be there through all of next week, helping out his mom, and my mom is flying out on the 26th to be there for the funeral that will be on Tuesday. It's possible that Bill's mom will be living with us sometime next year, once she gets everything in order. It's kind of been a turbulent week for my family.

Settling in and Surgeries

Hi all!

Yesterday I flew in to the promised land of Washington, where every breath you take smells fresh, woodsy, and cold, where the tallest, most glorious trees line every street and nearly overwhelm you. Mhmm. My family went out for dinner last night at this delicious Mexican restaurant, where I received a beautiful graduation present: a silver watch. Afterwards, at the house, we mocked a portion of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and the awful commercials that interrupted before turning the TV off and playing a round or two of Pictionary. I love my family.

Today, I spent the entire day unpacking and rearranging my new room...that I will be living in indefinitely. Such a weird thought. But I love my mom's new house! It's the perfect size, with lots of cozy little rooms.

And, as my mom and step-dad are obsessed with The Teaching Company and have, literally, bookcases of their lectures, and because I have to keep studying something or I'll go crazy, I have spent the evening picking out which ones I want. They all look fascinating and it's hard to choose!!! Do I want the lecure series on the Vikings or the one on the history of ancient Egypt?  Or From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History? Oooh, ooh, or one on Africa (From Lucy to Mandela)?!! And that's just involving history! There are lectures on literature, classical music, and astronomy and a million other things. I think I'm going to pick one of the histories, and one of the music studies to start.

This is kind of a random switch, but my mom had surgery back on Wednesday...and you wouldn't know it looking at her. She's had almost no pain, which is a real miracle, and she's been running around the place with her usual amount of high energy. It makes me happy to see.

***But right now, and this is the most important part of this entry, my sister's brother-in-law, Keith Gravley, is going through a very long and dangerous surgery due to an aortic aneurysm and the doctors are telling my sister and her in-laws that Keith has a 50/50 shot. So if you see this entry tonight, please pray for him. He ran the marriage ceremony for his brother and my sister back in June of this year and he really is a great guy, with a wife and two young kids.***

"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,iand
my life will shut beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands"

-E.E. Cummings