I Am Home

Well, I didn’t feel boring today, not at all. I felt sick. Sore throat, slight temperature, achy, upset tummy, generally blah, most of the day.

I got up, walked Chauncey and went right back to bed where I tossed and turned and had those peculiar sweaty dreams that come with these sort of things.

I dreamed that my friends moved into an upscale neighborhood in my town and I went to visit them. Their house was an amazing maze of staircases and rooms with little nooks and crannies tucked in everywhere. Of course I was trying to get to a particular place and couldn’t do it. That is standard fare in my dreams when I don’t feel well. I keep doing something over and over, but never achieving what I want. It’s that kind of foggy, slow motion struggle that becomes nightmarish after a while. Eventually I was able to tear myself away and go looking for my friends.

One of them was in the kitchen making dinner, and I found myself in one of the little nooks with the other. It was a small landing surrounded by an open railing and a staircase going downstairs. We sat facing each other and he told me how happy they were to finally have a home of their own and that he had flown them here in his small airplane.

I was excited and told him that I could show him a place right behind the house where he could land it. Of course it wasn’t an officially sanctioned place, but if he was careful, he should be able to use it anyway and it would be so convenient!

He said he was surprised how easily he had remembered how to fly and I told him it must be like riding a bike. Once you learn how, you never forget. Now he wanted to fly his friend around the town, but was afraid to push it. I gave him an encouraging hug just as he began to climb down from the little loft area we were in and my right shoulder, which is very limited in movement since my real move, was caught in an excruciating position that woke me up (for real.)

The good news? I woke up feeling better and starving for fried chicken! So I hopped in the car and bopped down the road. I wasn’t sure where the local chicken place was, but everything is close here and in less than two blocks I could smell the chicken. It’s funny how a smell brings back memories and I was immediately transported to my mom’s kitchen.

At home, sitting in my recliner, Chauncey at my feet looking reproachfully at me with his big eyes, I ate my chicken and at 9:33 PM had an epiphany! Leaping out of my chair, I rummaged in the closet and unpacked two frames I brought from North Carolina and hung one on the wall over the fireplace. It is the first thing I have put on the wall besides curtains and it seemed to magically alter the entire atmosphere.

I am home.