Hosted by Nora @ Walking With Nora
Wine
First of all, I have a midterm on the history of Latin America today. Lots of wine-ing about that. I will definitely be having a relaxing glass tonight after that’s over with. Second thing: I get up this morning to take a shower, get nauseous, and have to lie down for a few minutes. I almost decided to skip class because I didn’t think there’d be any way I’d make it on time. But I said, “No, I have to get up and get to class.” So, ignoring the ache in my stomach as I sat up, I finished getting ready and left fifteen minutes late. Here’s the thing about leaving late for class. Don’t do it. If you don’t have a reserved parking spot you paid $300 for, don’t even try to get to class on time, because even if you get to campus within a reasonable time, you will not get a parking spot. There will be absolutely nowhere for you to put your car while you go learn about Hamlet and his father’s ghost, and you will have wasted gas thinking you still had a shot at making it.
Love
I had the best dream I’ve had in a long time – maybe ever – this morning.
I didn’t know exactly where I was when the dream first began. I was kneeling down on a carpeted floor doing something – maybe packing – when I looked at my surroundings. I was in some sort of small, mobile house, only it was rocking slightly. A little girl came bounding through the door, and knelt down beside me. Her shoestrings were untied, so I looped the rabbit through the hole and saw my cousin Em in the doorway. “Come on,” I said to the little girl, “we need to get you a shower.” I looked over to my left where a young boy, maybe around 10 or 11, sat leaning over the edge of a hot tub watching the bubbles fume and steam beneath him. “I’m going to take your sister in for a shower. Are you going to stay out here?” He nodded, then stepped over the ledge into the tub. Em followed me into the bathroom of a bigger house.
I undressed the little girl and pulled back the shower curtain. She stepped in and began to bathe. I turned to Em and said, “You want to come with us?” She cocked her head back. “Uh, no. I don’t want to deal with a messy island.” I proceeded to tell her that my cousins’ parents’ used to take them to lake islands to camp all the time when they were younger, and they seemed to think it was a lot of fun. That’s when I woke up. As my body peeled into consciousness, I realized how deep I’d been sleeping. It was one of those dreams you hated to wake up from. The whole time, I’d been waiting for my husband to come home. I was excited about taking our kids camping on a lake island as it was something I’d always wanted to do as a child.
As I showered and got ready for school this morning, I clung to the dream, making a point to remember every piece of it. I wondered if that’s what my life would look like in ten years, if maybe God was giving me a peek at my future. Part of me hoped so, but part of me also knows it could’ve just been a dream. And there’s a lot of subtext to be implied by the way the dream played out. It was pretty dark outside in my dream – why wasn’t my husband already home if we’d been planning to go camping on a lake island? Why was Em even at my house? Why wasn’t she married and at home with her own kids? Why did my son look so dismal if we were about to go camping? Why were my children’s faces shadowed in darkness, even in the houses, when I looked straight at them?
Okay, I know, I know. I’m turning the Love portion of this post into a nearly wine-inducing story. In my defense, though, I’ve been trained to notice these things. I am an English major, after all.
Regardless of what the subtext was saying or not saying, I wondered why God allowed me to have the dream. If I should be thankful and happy for it, or wary of the way it only looked like a happy scene, and how elated it made me feel on the surface of waking up from it.
I think, mostly, I wanted to take the dream at face value, because upon waking up from it I felt like it was a rare thing to have a dream so fluid as though it could be real life, and so heartening when I typically have jagged, disjointed dreams or just outright nightmares.
I feel like I should say I’m loving something else given that my dream Love turned into something not so buoyant with fuzzy feelings. How about this green tea I’m drinking, then? I always love me some green tea.
What are you wine-ing and loving this week?
