Dreaming About?

I read a post recently about dreaming and it was obviously on my mind today. I stayed home from work, feeling nauseous and blah. In the middle of the morning I succumbed to a nap and the dream I had was so intense in its reality, I had a hard time waking up and leaving it on the couch where I was slumped.

So this was the dream. I dreamt that I was asleep on the couch and I began to hear kids voices. They were the voices of my children calling to me. My children in reality are young adults and not living at home. But in this dream they were in the house again. I could feel the pull of them calling to me and then hear them pounding down the stairs. The feelings I had hearing them were the same feelings I used to have when they were home--exasperation on their needing me yet again, concern that they had somehow just done something to the house that was irreparable, tired of being "on call." In the dream, my son appeared to me at the door on the porch and said as plain as if I were awake, "Mommy? Come upstairs. We have to show you something." I swear I felt myself rising from the couch, my arms raising to take his hand and then I heard my dream voice saying, okay I'm coming. In this dream I got up and went upstairs to my son's room where it became more weird and dreamlike in the things that took place. But the "feeling" of having them in the house with me again, running up and down the stairs and yelling and calling me, well, I woke up somewhat startled to realize that it was a dream and the reality was that they aren't here anymore and haven't been for a while.

And the rest of the day I missed them and that time with an ache that had nothing to do with the bug I was trying to chase from my system and everything to do with the quiet house.

Being a Slave...to Fashion?

What is it about women and clothes? I mean, I watched, "The Devil Wears Prada" and understand why fashion mavens do what they do and why we buy into it, I guess. But sometimes I believe this stuff was pounded into us subliminally when we were in the womb and we just can't escape.

I offer as an example (this statement said in my best Rod Serling impersonation) this past Friday. My husband and I attended a late afternoon/early evening wedding. It was a lovely day, but very hot. The week previous to this happy occasion, we had attended a funeral and well, let's just say the contrasts between the one service and the other within a week was dizzying. Now as a woman who has spent the last 40 or so years trying desperately to figure out what to wear and when to wear it, the funeral was easy. Basic black is always the preferred. Even navy blue or brown or even gray are fine. But see, weddings elude me. Do you dress festively? Do you wear lighter colors? Since it's fall, aren't your lighter colors already packed away next to the beach towels? I originally decided on a black dress. But I had been in black so much lately with the funeral, I thought I should somehow be more light-hearted! I noted right away at the wedding that this was wrong thinking. Every single woman there had on something with black on it, in it or swirled through it. All of their shoes were black--all of them. I stood there with my cheery, shimmering bronze blouse with a floating bronze and off white skirt and thought, Oh, God, I've done it again. I tried to remain in the background next to the wall paper the rest of the evening. I even wore beige strappy high heels. Horrors! I couldn't even claim to have a darker color wrap to put over my glaring faux paux.

Now I need to point out that not one single person said anything to me, or even looked like they were sneering. Everyone we talked to was gracious and genial and we all thought the company was fine and fun. But, I knew deep down that every woman who saw me, thought, "thank God I wore black." And next time, for sure, I'll wear it too.

a Long Time Ago

It was a long, long time ago
When my hair was longer
And I was thinner, in a skirt set
That was so trendy, I thought it belonged
To my sister.

We went to someone's house
For a christening
Someones I didn't know but he did
And chatting and eating
He talked a lot that day
So unlike his usual self.

I stuck to the outskirts
in my Skirt set
Watching and waiting for what
I'm sure I don't know.
But trying not to put a
Well shod foot wrong
To break the image of belonging with him
In amongst the programmers and office staff.

It was then, trying to remain invisible
Someone gave me a baby to hold.
They --the baby that is--was not fussy or loud
Or uncomfortable
and it wasn't the child of honor.
But a baby nonetheless.

I don't remember holding a baby
Before this afternoon of
Grown ups and parties.
I supposed I must have.
But I was careful and nervous
And remembered that children
Will know your nervousness and react to it
Like a dog can smell fear.
And I didn't want to be afraid,
So I placed this little child on
My lap and gazed at its little face
And it's pumping fists.
As it gazed at me from it's almost
Non-existent lids.
I don't remember if a boy or girl
Was what occupied my lap
But I do remember thinking,
"I can do this"

A thought that never occurred to me before.

Autumn Thoughts

I sat at a red light recently and saw the season had changed. Just like that. With a snap of her saucy finger, Mother Nature had begun to change the leaves. It was hotter than blazes as my grandmother used to say. Sticky and humid and stale as only New Jersey can be. I sat at the light and saw a tree had already changed its color. It wasn't dried out. Its leaves weren’t shriveled as though diseased. They were gold and brown with a blush of red. It looked like fall. It reminded me of so many autumns of the past. When we were rushing to get school supplies. When we rushed down to see the class listings posted on the front doors of the school. When we rushed to a relative’s house for one last picnic before the schedules and responsibility filled all the upcoming weekends. And I thought to myself, I wish for just one more of those fall seasons. My youngest has gone off to live in the land of one season. My oldest will again be teaching. I'm sure she has a whole new set of feelings when she sees the trees change color. But for me, I remember the squeaky new shoes, the starched new dresses, the slicked back hair, the smell of the chalkboard dust, the garbled morning announcements. And for my children, I’ll remember the nervous laughter of the kids gathered at the front of the school on their first day back. And their quick glance in my direction before entering the doors, as if to verify that yes, indeed, summer is over and fall is really here. The tree informed me in a hundred and one different memories and smells that the fall is just a season, no longer an event.