Intermittent

“Intermittent” is the first in a series of journal entries excerpted during my month absence from DotP. Titles, more often than not, are indiscriminately selected from excerpts. Excerpts, more often than not, are well diced and lightly edited.

Monday, 13 October, Leuven

I am grateful for a quiet house. The furnace burns. A church bell tolls. Mama the dog slightly snores. A lone cricket sings intermittently. Tom went to “the office” today. He left with a smile on his face and his computer in hand. Nervous but not anxious. Seems he sees the smooth waters just ahead.

My fatigue with Internet temporarily subsides. I send well wishes to friends in a cycle of contact. Each loved one regularly comes to mind, and my affection is continuous. Yes I would love to hear from them, learn the story that is theirs in its unfolding. But it feels that I am learning, with huge does of divine grace, how memory is a gift. Those moments of confidence, laughter, tears live on as long as each is recalled with the sincerity which bore them.

Tuesday, 14 October

Up at sunrise. The sky is gray. Water boils for tea. The coffee filters are out, so Tom doesn’t get a fresh brew of black oil this morning. Maybe he’ll taste the tea, which he hasn’t in awhile.

Dreams. This morning. First, on a residential road sitting in a parked car. Lxx approaches me from the other side of the road, and comes to the driver’s side window to talk. We chat when a huge seal “shows up.” It is near the road, on the place where lawn and road divide. I get out of the car to steer the seal into the backyard and call for help. Obviously the seal is lost, not where it should be. I don’t think it’s from nature though, just a zoo. Because where else could it come from? We go through the garage to the backyard. Then I go into the house through the garage.

I’m in a kitchen. Mxx and Axx are at a counter. I’m trying to ask for the phone and Axx is in a foul mood, talking over me with face twisted in annoyance. In this “process” Mxx is present and says nothing, and the seal gets in the house, passes me and the counter, and into the living room. Then Mama is on the scene and she catches wind of the seal. The dog runs after it and I’m sickened, afraid of the violence. That’s when I wake up. In the dream I don’t see the seal mangled or bleeding; I wake as Mama has reached the seal.

Wednesday, 15 October

The dream from this morning. A university campus setting. Jxx, an old childhood friend who I knew into adulthood but no longer have contact with, is with me. I’m giving her a ride home (wherever that is). I bring her with me to a meeting. It is with a sports group–athletic support team. Maybe American football. Jxx expresses part way through this meeting that she thought I was taking her right home, that she couldn’t wait; she is distressed by the delay. I apologize and explain that I forget “these things.” I had, apparently, forgotten to tell her about the meeting on the way home.

So we leave, though the director man (who’s wearing a baseball cap and is White) isn’t too pleased. We’re walking to where the car is parked; it’s not right next to where the meeting is held. We’re halfway to the car when I realize the dog isn’t with us; I’ve apparently left the dog back at the meeting or lost track of her en route. The dog is Mama so I’m worried about her attacking another dog. We’re backtracking and I’m looking for her; Jxx is with me. It’s daytime (light outside); we can see in medium wide street ways between very tall buildings (not skyscrapers but several stories) in row-house style. And I wake up as we’re nearing a “circle” of dogs-like they’re watching something like a group of humans do. I don’t recall it but it seems that Mama is in the middle; my worry, of course, is that she’s killed a dog.

Post updated: 28 January 2009.

Intermittent by Melissa Dey Hasbrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.