Just a Dream

I don’t remember how I got there, but earlier today I was walking alone on a beautiful but eldritch beach. And it felt like a dream. I think it was. I hope it still is, actually.

But I suppose it’s possible that I don’t recall arriving there because I was lost in thought while driving.

The entire landscape was pulled out of focus and possessed the sort of softly blurred appearance that’s reserved for dreams or photo filters. And I don’t use filters. The land, sea, and sky had all become one, and I stood and watched ghosts cloaked in mist march in from the ocean and on toward the dunes.

Or it all could have just been a marine layer.

Then I was back home. A very nice dwelling, but obviously set up for one. I haven’t been just one in years. In fact, right now I can’t remember the last time that my living arrangements involved just me. None of this makes any sense - clearly a dream.

However, there are echoes of another person and another place resting on shelves and hanging on walls here, and I might just be choosing to ignore them today.

Maybe I’m asleep at our home in the woods right now, soon to be awakened by a hungry cat. I think I’ll sit and rest with that notion for a while. And then I’ll wrestle with what will almost assuredly be a disagreeable reckoning.

Because whether due to desperate yearning or the literal dreamscape unfurled before me this morning, with sanguine hopelessness I once again half-heartedly attempted to semi-convince myself that the life I’m living isn’t real. Then I placed my current existence in the corner of my mind behind blackout curtains where I’m inclined to stow uncomfortable truths. And proceeded to hold onto a modicum of hope throughout the day that I was writing all of this from a restful yet lucid slumber in a remote and forested parcel of land in Washington. 

But before my head hits the pillow this evening, in whatever universe I’m occupying at the moment, my consciousness and I will settle up with likelihoods. Because while I see no problem allowing some part of me to take up residence in dreamland, the person that awakens here tomorrow without a cheek to kiss or a feline to feed will appreciate the softened blow.