I dream, I strain.

"All the time I dream I dream of Manhattan
or I dream of home. I strain. I leave, I go,
they leave, they go. " ML


I dreamed I pedaled my bike up the mountainside to the top of the hill where I could see Philadelphia's sky-line towering in the distance. I turned back and looked down on my hometown which was far off in the valley below and then looked again at the sky-line. I thought about a girl I know who is moving to that city and I thought "Well, at least her mother can see her from here." I thought it thinking that she would be safer and her mother would be more content. I thought it thinking that I cannot see my son from where I am.

I dreamed my husband had lovers so I had to leave him and had no where to go but to my mother's home. In the dream, as I realized that I had to leave my own home, I imagined the conversation I would have with my mother and how she would respond to my request. I imagined her sitting at a round table drinking a hot beverage and reading a newspaper near a window where sunlight warmed her shoulders. "Of course" she responded. "This will always be your home."

I woke wondering what if I tell my children that I am their home but then I have no home to offer? What then? What then?

I didn't wonder about my husband's loyalty, but I remembered the disloyalty of my first husband, and although I no longer love him, that hurt still twinges. The possibility of disloyalty, in all its forms -- it twinges.

Everything around me is in motion. People are constantly moving from place to place, leaving, returning. On days after nights like these, when I dream of places and the strain to remain or to leave them, I understand the desire to "die at home." And the dreams, in themselves, linger inside me long after I've woken. On days after nights like these I like to entertain myself with ideas of reincarnation, although I have no "beliefs" about what comes after death, I have fun playing with the stories that conceptualize a soul or something like a soul that may be recycled or even shared. I mostly just think that we humans are more sensitive to our surroundings than we realize.

One day someone is going to discover something very important.