Northern Lights

I have wild, terribly beautiful dreams about places that confuse me.  I feel sometimes like there must be a way to find the things I dream.  There are boys in my dreams and I am young.  My husband is there, and he's surrounded by light.  I know that he will love me, some day, but I don't tell him.  I sit with him and smile, knowing that he'll see me, one day.

Things go wrong.  I lose my sight, often, but my husband is there and I remember that we'll get older, we'll have babies and everything will be okay.  Sometimes I am driving a car, and I can't see.  I only feel scared for a moment, careening wildly around mountain passes, winding roads with a precipice and a railing.  Then I remember our babies, the days they were born, how there was a light hanging above me that clanged into place.

When things go wrong in my nightmares, I know that we love one another and that we'll be together, as soon as I can get myself out of this mess.  I don't have to be afraid of anything, because I have the thing that people fear losing, that people fear being without.

I dream about a trail that hovers above the rivers, about a city covered in lights.  On days like today, where the sun is shining and I'm feeling like I might just float away, I think that I should go ride my bike on that trail that lets me look down over the water.  The one that follows the curve of the hillside.  That one that isn't quite real.  But, it must be.  In some city, somewhere, there must be a pathway that crosses itself, back and forth, leading into a place where twinkling lights are reflected on the moving surface of a river.

That's how I feel when I dream things.  That they must be possible, somewhere.

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I have a memory from my childhood that's taken on an abstract, sort of arcane, dreamlike space in my mind.

The aurora borealis was supposed to be visible in our part of the world.  We were kids and we went out to eat at a restaurant.  It was dark and we weren't used to being out this late.  The Northern Lights were a faraway sort of promise, one that didn't make sense.  I was worried about losing a library book.  It was due in the morning and I couldn't find it.  My mom kept asking me what was wrong, and I kept telling her, nothing.

We got into our car, the four of us buckled into the back seat and my father drove us into the country.  Down long gravel roads and through the forest, we emerged next to a wide open field.  There were stars everywhere.  It was chilly.  My parents blew in their cupped hands for warmth.  We stood in the grass, staring at the sky.


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