Trading Obligations for Sleeping In

I dreamed about feeding water bears...or my version of them.
They were large enough to compare to a silver dollar. I was letting them eat moss and lichen, cupped in my hands. They wiggled about my palms, almost playfully. They felt like caterpillars legs moving in succession. They were pink and gray in color, and their skin was smooth, save for a few spines here and there. They had eyes shaped like tiny black almonds. Some were interacting with each other, like horseplay. They seemed to enjoy being stroked by my fingertip....

My phone rang and woke me up.

A Little Indemnity

I dreamed that I was digging through the attic storage. It was chilly from the combination of Spring and less than efficient insulation.
I discovered birds had gotten in somehow. As I attempted to shoo them out, one was killed. It was a jay, I think. Or my version of one. I felt terrible, as I crouched to pick up its limp form from between a stack of cardboard boxes. It looked unnatural laying on it's back, when I scooped it up, it's little head hung limp. Its soft, sleek, gray-blue top feathers rested on my palms as I cradled it in my hands. With its wings splayed open, I could see the yellow and brown hues of its down like feathers from its underside. I studied the body for a possible cause of demise, while gently stroking its little head with my thumb. It was a pretty little bird. I felt like an asshole for causing its death.

I set the bird down, and sneezed from the dust in the air. Then I  realized: to the left was a nest in the very box I had been looking for. It had three eggs in it. They were gray-blue as the feathers of their mother, with yellow and brown flecks all over.  I quickly tested their temperature with my finger: cool on top, warm on the bottom. I scooped them up and, cupping them in my hands, I slowly huffed warm air on them. I said to myself that I would do my best to finish the bird's job. I put the eggs back in their nest and took the box with nest and all, downstairs.

January Cliches

I have to learn to follow thru.

It's the most cliche thing to say, this time of year, but I want to make that change.

I'm not honest enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not brave enough for the changes that lie ahead of me.

I'm greedy, selfish, and judgmental. I can be quite bitter when wounded, so I try never to let anyone see when I am. 

I need to make a real change. Unfortunately, every step I have to take is a process of smaller steps, and I'm also very impatient.

Thankfully, I'm from a long line of bullheaded genes, on both sides of my tree. I just have to get past the procrastination I've developed from my generation. Then I'll likely be able to push through the time it will take for all of my ambition to pan out.

I'm willing to admit it's all a slow pace because I am so afraid of change. Change is dangerous, full of risk. I prefer simplicity, safe, settled.....but....

I have this yearning to get more than safe, more than settled and simple. I need more than surviving, I need the risks, the experiences, the adventures....

So, I'm taking the steps that are a process of little steps, and I'm learning to be patient, and I'm learning to be truthful. 

 I'm hoping that by the end of this journey, maybe I won't have just consumed and populated. Maybe I'll have contributed too. I want to become more than what I am. Better than what I am.

Maybe someday he'll see that, and want me....

Winter on Tibbets Lake

I dreamed that I was a young girl again...I was sitting on a deck that I both recognized and created, as I sometimes create things in my dreams. This deck,  its terracotta paint chipping off its splintering boards, belonged to my Grandparents' lakefront house in East Bay Township, Michigan.
I could smell the woods. Through the corner of my eye, I could see down the wooden staircase. It trickles down the steep hill their house sits on. I could also see and hear the lake water at the bottom of those stairs. I felt the wind tugging my hair into my eyes. It whistled around and above through the naked branches of the woods that surrounded my Grandparents' property. It was bitter cold. I could see and feel the crispness of the frost on the boards beneath me, where I sat. But the cold had no effect on me. The sky was gray with winter, and dimming with the lateness of the day.
Then I heard the rustling in the leaves: little feet pattering across the wood boards of the deck. I heard tiny little claws scraping too. I looked down at my hand when I felt a tickling, scratching that clearly indicated an insect was crawling. I saw several magnificently colored, horned beetles. I was the only source of warmth to them, in a hundred miles.
I picked them up, gently, and tucked them in my sleeves. I saw tiny little lizards, too cold and scared to move away very fast. Their little mouths opened wide in a fearful, threatening pose. I picked them up delicately and held them close to my skin. They warmed and became so comfortable they curled up in my clothes.
More of the many-colored beetles and brown-gray lizards began crawling out of the leaves and through the cracks in the deck. I invited them to crawl up my sleeves and the legs of my pants. I could feel them in my hair and around my neck. I warmed them and flicked away any parasites that might hurt them.

This was the first good dream I've had in a long time.

On my own

I dreamed that I was walking alone. I was walking up Wiltshire, just past Mr. J's lotto store. There was a minivan with three men inside, parked in a driveway. They were watching me walk. I attempted to go around, when suddenly, the sliding door shoved open, and a younger man ran out and towards me. I began running. I screamed for help, but no one came. I ran through the neighborhood.  My assailant was keeping up. I climbed up a tree as fast as I could, then on to the roof of  the house it was in front of. The man couldn't or wouldn't climb the tree. Instead, he began picking up rocks and throwing them at me, hoping to make me fall. I kept screaming for help, but no one came.

I woke up.