The 25 minutes between alarms was just enough time for a strange dream and "reunion." It was a continuation of an earlier dream in which I was in a strange new apartment or condo with a toilet unlike other I've ever seen, and sharing the details of that would just eat up more of the too little time I have this morning to write. In this second dream I was in the dining room, and there on the tabletop amid some other clutter of things that had not been put into place yet was a graph paper notebook with a brown cover. I was waiting for someone who would be living there - my sister, I think - to come through the door, but it seemed that she was missing. I picked up the book and saw that the front half was blank, but when I turned to the center leaf I saw several entries of writing in my mom's unmistakable script. It appeared to be a sort of journal that she had started, leaving the front half empty in case my sister wanted to reclaim it on her eventual return. The first and third entries seemed to be prose, with what looked like it might have been a piece of verse between them. (That I know of, my mom never wrote any poetry.) I closed the book, not wanting to violate her privacy. Soon I went into the strange bathroom again, taking the journal notebook with me, battling the temptation to read it as I tidied up in the bathroom and prepared to sit on the strange "throne."
Before I got to that point, my mom came into the apartment. I opened the bathroom door and she cleaned up a couple of things that I hadn't gotten to yet, either ignoring that I had her journal or not being concerned about it. We talked about my having to "go back" for work - my dream sense was that it was back to Maryland - and she told me that she knew I wouldn't be able to stay yet, that I needed to go back and take care of what I needed to without any sense of urgency to return here or resentment about things. It was clear now that we were in Georgia; this place was just off of I-85 about halfway between downtown Atlanta and my stepfather's place in Hoschton. Mom seemed to understand and accept my plan not to tell him that we were moving there or to get in touch with him. She was wishing me safe travel and peace of mind when my second alarm woke me.
On waking, I can't help thinking that perhaps the geographical details of my dream were just placeholders. I'm reminded of a dark line almost exactly in the middle of Confession that has never since been completely untrue, and wonder if this dream is maybe unconsciously addressing that thought habit.
There's so much more to write about, but I'm out of time budget this morning (partly because of this dream and partly because of taking time to write about it). Later, as time permits: my Lenten virtue stone, my thoughts on yesterday's Office of Readings, and back into Fr. Neuhaus.
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