beacon

 

Northern Lights

I had a dream the other night – long and detailed. It concerned my  oldest friend who no longer liked me and was also dying of cancer. Then a very ornate, newly opened hotel with a festivity in full swing. I ended up sitting next to the architect. He was kind – very kind. We were drawn to each other. All night, we kept finding each other, even though we were trying not to. Then, during dessert, I was seated next to him and a handsome – not pretty but very kind-faced – woman. His wife. It turned out that he’d sewn the dress she was wearing. It had exceptionally detailed embroidery on it. I was amazed; it was as beautiful as the building he’d designed, and I loved him even more for it. I was sad but was pleased to know how happy he was with this woman.

It was so hard to wake up – away from my kind architect, away from such beauty. Truly, I had to force myself awake after ten hours of sleep.

A friend in a difficult marriage described the other day the act of sitting in the late afternoon and sharing a cup of tea with a contractor who is working on her house and has become a friend. They shared news of their days. They talked about the president’s speech. About kids. About the weather. “It was such a good reminder,” said my friend, “of what a relationship is supposed to look like – and how much mine doesn’t.”

I remember  years ago in Seattle when I was ending an especially dysfunctional relationship with a guy who was my polar opposite – bleach-dyed hair, heavily tattooed, skinny jeans and old Converse sneakers. A dear old friend with whom I’d had an on-again-off-again physical relationship came to visit me for a few days. We spent an afternoon at the beach, walking and talking. We went for pizza and then a movie – the Tom Stoppard  one about Hamlet’s friends. When we got home near midnight, the Northern Lights were dancing over my house. We went upstairs, got in bed and curled together, reading and sharing snippets of sections that we liked. It was the best reminder I could have asked for as to why I needed to leave the tattooed boy. It was a beacon of what I truly wanted.

the strongest girl in the world

Let me start with an aside. I’m listening to old Joan Armatrading, specifically, this very moment, the song “Heaven”: “I want to be the sunshine when you’re down… I want to be the one you run to… Came into my life, made me think that I was really something…” Yadda Yadda. I’m melting. I’m crying. I really can’t listen to anything except maybe Sousa marches right now without feeling like a big old romantic abscess. Hold me. Touch me. Love me. Jesus, I might as well just start listening to Lionel Ritchie 24/7, with a little Bread thrown in when I really want to cry. (Bread – remember them?)

But what I’m sitting here thinking about –the part of my brain that is consumed by something other than the fantasy of a tall man showing up on my doorstep–is Bea’s Halloween costume. She wants to be Pippi Longstocking. I think this is a swell idea. Talk about a maverick! Pippi is the real deal. The strongest girl in the world, no less. It’s just the kind of moxie Bea needs right now.