ponderosa dreams

I just had the most fantastic Ponderosa dream. Must be what it was because here I am laid out belly-flat across the futon. My feet over a pillow, shoulders pull tight from across my back, eyes burning - sleep, sleep, sleep. But my fingers come here to the keys and while everything else in me is screaming "shut down," they hit. They settle in, slightly bent, and go. What the hell just happened? How did I get here, and did I ever leave?

My dream is tall Ponderosa Pines, needles jabbing into my bare feet. It's freight-train winds cool across my arms, sending waves through the tall grass. I dream of red-winged black birds landing on cat tails, silvery water below. I dream in pieces, remnants of Taco Bell and shooting cans out on the prairie, lonely wedding nights and frightened children. Guitars and violins and a great Doe peeking through the sliding glass doors on us, darkening sky behind her. We are sitting in a circle, all angles. Blond hair, brown hair, gray hair. Sitting in lotus,legs out, laying on bellies. The images synch across my chest drawing my shoulders around to each other, propped on elbows. I feel it, open my shoulders back so the vertebrae stack one on top of another. The light changes, slant shadows, no shadows, long shadows and around the circle the stories ripple and flow.

I could swear I was there, it all feels so real. But I wake up on the futon, same place I always wake. The apartment is clean, thirsty spider plant dropping over the top of the book shelf. I prop myself up on elbows then push all the way to sitting, push the sleep away. Open the windows to let the night air in and the gas smell out. The apartment always smells like gas, but tonight it's thick. It's quiet and I can hear a train off in the distance. Scan the room for evidence but everything is as it always is; papers piled beside the computer, toys stacked along the wall, glass cobalt colored plate left on the table from dinner.

If it weren't for those two Taco Bell wrappers - brown wrappers, purple letters - on the plate, I wouldn't believe any of this really happened. But there it is - the evidence on the table; wrappers, empty hot sauce packets (not fire or mild) and Pepsi cup.

Thanks, sisters, for opening such an incredible circle. Thanks Jennifer for deep listening and deeper seeing. Thanks Carrie for opening another home in another space to another amazing weekend. Always a life altering experience.

I lay my head down, cheek flat against the futon, and drift back there in a dream.