May 25, 2018

Day of blue agate. Unwrapped and dusted the grill. Soon I will be baking pies and roasting vegetables for the picnic. Rehearsal last night leads us to believe we are in good enough shape for the concert. Since the commissioned piece is a disappointment, it’s hard to see how this concert is any more gala than another, except that it will be at the Wortham.

Something very strange happened in the night. In dreams I was approached by a being that looked like my sister, but I knew it wasn’t my sister. It was evil, but I couldn’t strike at it because it looked like my sister, and I wasn’t absolutely sure. Suddenly, it went black as a hole in the universe, vaguely man shaped. I knew it was a demon–to be more specific, MY demon. I cried out THE DEMON and tried to fight. We struggled. It was fighting for a place in me forever and I was fighting to be rid of it. I knew I must have been screaming, but I didn’t actually know I was asleep. I was more afraid and more desperate than I have been at any other time in my life, waking or sleeping. It is the new standard in bad dreams. I bit at it, crushed under, unable to move or breathe or use my arms. Then I awoke. There was not only the infinite relief of waking from that, but the conviction that it had been a real action, and the lingering darkness of the demon was gone, completing the process begun Maundy Thursday.