The Warm Feeling We’ve Been Dreaming Of

My confusion rises red hot. I have nightmares of being shot; I'm not in pain and instead feel a slow warmth spreading through my brain. This is similar to the feeling I get after yoga and after I've run five miles. I think of the man who yelled after me in jest, what are you running from? Perhaps recent events. I'm a slow burn yet I feel my emotions all at once, like gunpowder meeting flames.

I had a dream my mother and grandmother arranged my wedding cake, cutting the slices into thin portions. I wake up aching for love and appreciation from them or any man. There is a desire to close the distance between me and the man sleeping next to me. He said to me once: if you don't have children, you'll be the first woman in your direct line of ancestry who has not had a child. My HappyLight for depression burns bright but doesn't give the answers I'm looking for. Perhaps I'll return it.

I read poetry books in bed. The poet says, I've gotten a million "likes", but love is what matters.* Something about gratitude. I am obsessed with the wisdom that comes from exploring the wasteland of my brain chemistry.

Appreciation is what hits the pavement when I walk the icy streets I call home. I devour the feeling of belonging somewhere physical. There is no solace, for me, in ruminating about what could be, no matter how tempting and automatic it is. I want to be home and devoured by a nostalgia I can cure.

When I was shot in the head in my dream, I was in a car. It was like an accident but with someone pointing a gun. I looked up and into the gunman's face and eased my way into what would be my destiny. The warmth in my brain was both mental, physical, and spiritual.

Perhaps we need to find our way home in a mental space devoid of pain. Or, perhaps that pain makes 'home' all the more poignant. I need to find my way back. There are maps to do this and my airplane seat is always a window so I can see the sky.

So I can see what I've been dreaming of.

*Paraphrasing the poet Atticus, in his book, "The Truth About Magic."