You know who you are.

Although you are not scheduled to call this evening(your time)/this morning (mine), should you choose to do so (even if only briefly) with expressions of love on your lips, I will listen.

Cordially,

Alison

I am a constant dreamer so it surprised me when years went by after my father’s death with almost no dreams of him, but a few months ago he finally began to show up in my sleep. Every dream starts with me just hugging the daylights out of him. My dad was a tall man so when I hugged him I would tuck my head under his arms and press my cheek to his chest. With some people there is that negotiating of whose arms go over and where to place your head but with my dad there was none of that. If you were under six feet you tucked.

In these dreams I am so relieved that I get to hug him but I never know why. There is always a bit of wonder that he is there and that we are embracing and yet I don’t know he is dead. Then there is that moment of shifting levels of sleep where I realize it and the sorrowful “Oh he‘s dead!” hits so hard. I guess I think, even awake, that I am really meeting him in my dreams and I want to be aware enough to know that he is, so that I can be fully present. I was so rarely with him those last years, especially when we were together.

Opportunities pass.

I had a dream about Paul the other night. At the moment he is in China. I went away for the weekend early Friday morning and he flew out Sunday before my return. My trip added two days and two nights to our separation which is no small thing. Coming home I was already missing him and his trip had just begun. That night he was in my dream. He was younger than he is now. It was so good to see him and I threw myself into his arms. Paul is a very tall man too, making the head tuck necessary with him as well. He hugged me back and swung to pick me up and carry me. At that moment I knew I was in a dream. For a second I hesitated going with him. Dreams can be so changeable. I was afraid of being pulled into a nightmare, but the thought of letting go was worse; I held on. We began to fly and the room we were in opened up and became a large field dipping into a valley. The beauty was astounding. Paul’s face was turned from me but I relaxed in his arms as we floated through the air and my foot gently skimmed a cloud.

I spent my vacation with family. One night as I was ladling beef stroganoff for ten children and there was not another adult in sight I began to question that I was, in fact, on a vacation. We were gone for a week and a half, returning last Wednesday night. Thursday I unpacked, did laundry and repacked. Then left, early Friday, for a weekend on an island with eight other women, all writers.

It is probably no surprise that I got more rest and refilling out of those three days than I had the previous ten. When I told my carpal tunnel inducing beef stroganoff story, one of the women suggested I call it “visiting family”, which is good and fun and beautiful, but is not, truly, a vacation.

As I sit in a cold kitchen in Maine, my brother-in-law is installing a new floor in my kitchen and dining room in Michigan. If my feet weren’t freezing it would be perfect.

Kids, I can’t even tell you about our week last week. It involved celebrating four birthdays, tearing out old carpet, knocking out cupboards, calling plumbers, negotiating with our insurance claim rep, buying new flooring, doing about a thousand loads of laundry and packing for a 9 day vacation all while trying to neducate the big ones and herd the little ones.

But we have been having a great vacation.

Tomorrow we head back to New Hampshire for several more days before flying home Wednesday.

I hope you are all well.

I am behind on all the blogs. Our internet coverage has been poor. Next week I am going to tie myself to a tree with the goal of finishing the essay I have been blabbing about, but not writing enough, for weeks, but I might not be able to get up to date with all y’all for a bit.

I am going to turn this off and go climb into my bed (which is under a skylight) and count the stars.

It was almost 10 pm when the phone rang. Torey answered but I knew who it had to be.

She assured the caller we were fine, apologized, explained that we were trying to put four kids to bed and assured that we were fine again.

It was the front desk and one of our neighboring suites had called with a concern that everything was OK. We had been relatively quiet when the call came. That relativity is important. Giggling sheepishly we tried to determine what prompted the call.

Was it when Eden and Ren tripped and fell while running up the stairs? No one was hurt but it made a tremendous crash.

Was it when Lydia stubbed her toe on the nightstand, and fell to the ground flailing and sobbing?

C ould it have been when Christopher and Ren ran upstairs and were jumping on the bed, closely followed by David, yelling at them to stop as his laptop was on the bed too?

Or was it when Christopher was swirling around in the chair making loud monkey like sounds and Paul began to shout begging him to be quiet?

I couldn’t really say.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2006/09/875/