Quiet

I am very quiet today. The morning, books, and afternoon. Lunch and a walk with Sara. She eats a chocolate covered pineapple while I pick at a string of fruit lodged in my teeth. Later, Vicki calls, and we speak, two deliberately weak gin and tonics in our hands. I say "grace" and she understands. And she tells me of her mother, whom I forget to wish well as I leave. My own mother calls and talks of dreams. "As a girl, I used to dream that I could fly. Out the window, and there I'd go."

My own dreams are puzzles, riddles, messages, or visions. Andy reaching his hand to me the night I almost drowned. And Michael silencing, with a similar tale of his own, my tale of having fallen off the high school roof. Last night, I dreamt my family - or some new version of it - lived on a small and opulent island, and I walked past the closed eateries to the rough shore, too dangerous to swim in. I took a shower or planned to in the house, white and gleaming. While my father, wealthy and important, bellowed. We were hosting a party that night. And could I put this sliding door back upon its hinges? "I don't think I can, alone," I told him. Awake.

Now it's evening, almost nine, and I am quiet still and calm. The sky is a sea-storm blue, the small lamp on the windowsill circumscribed in orange. I will read, and I will think, and I will follow the wind through the streets if it beckons.