The Dreams that Come

This is Day 11 of the pandemic. I’ve been lucky to have slept well this past week.

I left the charging cord to my Fitbit in a desk drawer at work, so I’m uncharacteristically un-monitored these days. And getting used to it. I wake rested. Sometimes waking thinking of work-related tasks, or sorting through fragmented ambitions, but never having to remind myself of this exceptional reality.

On Thursday my body itched head-to-toe. That happens sometimes when the creatures under my skin, living in symbiosis with me, notice my subconscious fear and complain. Like tenants banging on the landlord’s door.

E. and I ran in the woods, then I came home and sipped on a neat 18 year-old whiskey. We watched something so silly I forgot what it was.

Then I slept. No one banging on the door.

The dog still needs to pee at 6 am. He still comes in and gallops to the cupboard pre-zoomies energetic, waiting for his treat that is like a starting gun for him to dart around the living room like a whirling dervish. 90 pound Tasmanian devil. Silly hound dog expression so at odds with his enthusiasm.

Yesterday, walking Leonard,  I remembered this past autumn – when the dogs were dying of some unidentified cause – all over Norway. No one knew why, and we were told to avoid other dogs until they could sort it out. We traced large arcs around the neighborhood. They never sorted it out. And the concerns seemed to fade away.

Now we walk large arcs to avoid other people.

I woke at 2 last night. Then at 4.

As I write this I don’t even want to try to remember the details of the dreams I had.

Just casting my mind in that direction, a coldness that wraps around my chest – high, up under my armpits. It makes me aware how vulnerable my center is. Just above my belly button, a hollow burning. Some kind of hunger.

I eat frozen grapes.

And that is seriously not helping.