October 1, 2011

Went to bed early, rose late, when there was a glimmer of silver already in the sky. During that time I had the most amazing dreams. One took place in my recurrent dream factory, the maze-y City of Night inspired by my job at Goodyear in high school. I was part of some kind of superior scavenger hunt. Every now and then an Important Person would appear and give me a new task or a new thing to find in the labyrinth, and I would set out to do it. It was adventure rather than drudgery. Then I was in the old neighborhood on Foxboro. The house next to us was huge, square, made of white marble, and very mysterious. But the young man who lived there beckoned to me, and I went into the house and found a palace. The walls were vast aquaria filled with exotic fish and salamanders and beautiful thing harder to classify. Fountains chattered forth from walls shaped like shells or pearly groves of trees. He led me from room to room, making clear that I was part of his circle now, and all these wonders were available to me whenever I wanted. In the writing, it occurs to me that both these dreams involve a guide or mentor opening new worlds. My life has been singularly mentor-less, so I hope this signals some new era. And all this at the end of a week when I have had a peculiar sense of physical well-being.

And all allowed me better to cope with the cat vomit on the bed.

Kristen’s wedding went off without a hitch on easily the most splendid afternoon of this early autumn. The bride was radiant, the groom was nervous, the bridesmaids were catty and giggly, the groomsmen were affectionate and funny. At the reception I watched and blessed in my heart, thinking that however fumbling humankind is, however retrograde our intentions, there is something in happy, innocent, generous hearted moments such as that which acts as a kind of ratchet, to keep the whole enterprise from falling into night.