Dream Crossovers
How does the timing of a dream
cross over into reality?
How do I just happen to have
been outside in a park
for a long time, people watching –
watching a grandmother and
her little granddaughter
romping around in a new dress
with little lacy fold-over socks
the same kind I used to wear with
patent leather Mary Janes when
OH NO!
The grandmother sees a bug on one
lacy sock and bends down to get it
so I run to lean in and have a closer look
when the grandmother grabs it
by the back legs and holds it up.
“It’s a tick! The little ones carry
Lyme disease, but this is a big one.
See?”
She controls the panicking tick
its legs in four wheel drive
doing all it can to escape
while
the little granddaughter is watching
in wonder at the scrambling tick
intent on observing it so she can maybe
identify ticks in the future
when the tick gets away and
scurries quickly onto my sleeve and runs
up my arm, past my shoulder and into my hair and
I FEEL IT!
hit my head with a thud, so
I WAKE UP FOR REAL
and hear and see
a winged flying something hitting
the hotel walls in the corner above my head, all
discombobulated and in a state of panic.
So I lie here wondering
#1. How did my dream know to start building toward
real and physical contact with a dream bug
before the hotel bug hit my head?
#2. I’m not letting these real
bugs into my dreams here again.
The coffeemaker was nasty, too, and there
was a winged bug in my coffee cup
and what I
wanted from the Reid Ridge Lodge in
Blue Ridge, Georgia was the
rustic atmosphere
of a would-be lodge, but not the
authentic risky kind
like Thoreau or Emerson would sleep in
without pest control
and that is why I didn’t stay upscale.
note to self: check
under seat rims of toilet
and ceiling above shower
before starting
the day
Common Threads 