Bad dream early this morning.  We were living in a police state where some group had taken over everything.  On the surface it looked ok, but some of us knew the truth.  Curfews were in place and people were mysteriously disappearing.  I had been forewarned and somehow David and I were not together.  He was back in the town – and I was on the edge of the woods on the outside of the boundary lines.  Communication was sketchy.  Cell phones were working intermittently and we didn’t want to have our ringers to alert anyone to our location.  I kept trying to reach David and left him partial messages each time we were cut off.  The group I was with was heading out soon.  I was begging David to come quickly.  He kept saying he would leave in 9 minutes but each time I reached him he hadn’t left yet.  Suddenly my group was gone without telling me and I was alone.  Franticly, I searched for David, sneaking back into town obscuring my head and face in a hat and mask. 

I could see groups of people being herded into a large fenced area – after this point they were “processed” into the system and there was no turning back.  They were taking group photographs – smiling and laughing – blind to their fate.  I failed to find David and headed back to the woods.  Then somehow we found each other and a small group of others who were fleeing.  We had our dogs with us and removed their jingling tags so nothing would make a sound on the trail.  I knew we would need to stay off the main path and had rough directions but we realized that we would be walking in the dark with no flashlights and no compass.  Time was off the essence but all of a sudden there were more delays.  Someone wanted a sandwich, David had to go to the bathroom, and I was doing something else.  We split up for a minute and suddenly I screamed, “Where are the dogs?”  In the last minute confusion both of us thought the other was watching the dogs.  My dogs had disappeared into the night, into the police state, into the unknown.  We called and called them and they never came back.

Waking with this dream I am heavy.  I keep checking on my boys as they lounge in the sun.  They are settling in to our vagabond life.  I am not.  Not yet.  Last night my grief was intense.  Earlier, I invited Dusty and Cassidy to the mall for an escape where we wandered and laughed for a few hours.  Shopping with a teenager is certainly fun.  When I dropped them off, the dark silence descended quickly.  Knowing this might be the case, Dusty stopped me and I sobbed through my car window into her arms.  “I just want to go home”, I said.  As we parted I saw the trail of her mascara filled tears running down her cheek.  Thank you for sharing my grief, Dusty.  Thank you all.

My heart breaks this morning.  My tears want to come but I am so tired.  What’s the point of crying right now?  It’s just heavy and dark.  I miss everything about my house.  I miss my comforts.  I want to go back to some other space and time.  Sure, I want my new lessons of transformation (which I have barely glimpsed) but can I please have my home?  I will give up other things, I promise.  I will give up books, stress, overwhelm, driveness, the need to succeed, clothes – and even shoes!  I just want my home.

It is alive right now.  I can see it and feel it.  Like a phantom limb, I am sure it is still there standing on its idyllic perch with its sweet profile staring into the vast expanse.  It is waiting for me to find it.  It is simply tucked away somewhere like that lone sock that disappears.  My brain is desperately searching through folds of time and space, sorting memories.  If I can just get back there, everything will be ok.  I can have my sanctuary.  I do not want this pain.  I do not welcome it.  There is no good ending right now.  There is no happily ever after.  I just want to go home.