Waking up

Dear Web,

Last night I had a dream that Phoenix was at the Vet's office waiting for me to pick him up. That's where he's been all this time. I'd just forgotten.

Of course, I woke up and sadly remembered he is gone and why/how. But this notion of 'waking up' has been strange.

Over the last months I have been having strange experiences of something in the house getting my attention and I feel I am waking up from something. I have an odd momentary sense of myself, "Where am I? How did I get here?...It's lovely. The pond, the light that comes in the windows. The roses.... But how did I get here?" It's like I am waking up from something. And sometimes in the morning as I am literally waking up, I wonder similarly, "Why do I keep waking up in this place? Where is my old room?" It's all very subtle and quick. Like if I wasn't paying attention, I'd miss that sense of 'where am I?" and "how did I get here?"

Another one of my tenderhearted memories with Phoenix is waking up. Very, very rarely did I wake up in the morning before him and get to watch him wake up. He almost always beat me to the first look! Even if I didn't stir, he'd sense me waking up. I don't know if he would hear my breathing shift or what, but almost always when my eyes would open, his would be looking so lovingly at me from his curled up nest. And of course each night I enjoyed just watching him let go into sleep. He was such a peaceful sleeper. Perhaps he thought the same of me and that's why he like to be the first one to greet my eyes and heart each morning.

So, this notion of waking up has my attention today, particularly because of this morning's dream where I was dreaming that I just hadn't 'woken up' to the fact Phoenix was simply at the vet waiting for me to come get him. Am I in a dream, a really bad dream, right now living without him that part of me is struggling to wake up and find my beloved companion in such an obvious misplaced place? Or is it because this new home feels so idyllic and dreamy sometimes that I am confused by being in such a place without my beloved Phoenix? Or are those parts of me, those tender deeply terrified parts of me, who are still in shock slowly waking up to what has happened and who hasn't survived?

There are philosophers/writers who have written about the notion that there is someone else who is dreaming us to life and when that someone wakes up, our lives are over. I don't know about that, though it is an intriguing notion for someone like me who dreams vividly. I also recall Demi Moore who starred in a movie called "Passion of Mind" where she played a character who dreams of herself waking up into another lifetime each time she goes to sleep. She is terribly troubled because she is not sure which lifetime is 'real'. In those quick and subtle moments during the day when, say for example, the top of a doorway catches my attention, I share that momentary trouble of disorientation. But every time, I wish for only one thing: Phoenix to gallop into my arms. If that happened, it wouldn't matter where I was, I'd be wide awake at Home.

Love,
Melissa