Last night, a night dream.  A very large "house".  So many people,  coming and going.  The walls,  extremely tall walls were being painted by her mother and father who were in their maybe 40's.  when really,  they've been long dead.  Her "things"…that were in the corner of one very large room had been moved for this painting and she didn't know where they were.  There were many hallways leading off from the central room and they (her stuff)  were somewhere,  but there was comotion and no one caring really about anything,  just participating kind of mindlessly in the comotion,  so she kept looking,  and it turned into the same building that has been in so many recurrent dreams over the years,  that seems ok enough,  even fine,  until you go to the far edge of it to kind of a fire escape stairway and realize that it is rotting,  about to implode.  That it could happen at any moment…

and it goes on,  no need to tell the rest.  She dreams.  Then wakes.  2:30,  the appointed hour for waking.  Lying there,  looking out at those STARS.  Having become accustomed to their SIZE,  she lies there,  watching Night. 

Closing her eyes,  she travels back to where she came from.  This is for the first time since she left.  First time,  really looking at the true fact that she had gone.  That she had loaded up "her" Goats,  her dog,  her cat,  her stuff,  her Self,

and left.

she realizes how she has done this before.  The details different,  the things she "took" different,  but that she has done this before.  Made a decision to change Everything,  based on some deep and unknown "felt sense",  and without undue plan

left.

done it again.  

She rests with this thought.  She then sees herself back,  in the Place of Before.  She is in the old metal house,  its walls moving in the WIND.   Her morning chair being gone,  she stands.  Its empty.  The house is empty.  OutSide….also Empty.  the Goat fencing is gone.  The Albatros is empty.  Only the earth and it's companions, remain except for the Raft.  But she had taken things from the Raft, so it,  in it's way is also empty.

there is no describable way to tell of the feeling of this.  It simply is.  Not Good or Bad.  but is.  She sees what she left behind.  and sees that really,  it's not much.  Not much to account for so many years of living.  of doing.  of trying.  of Just going.

Not much.  and there is some kind of clarity about how it IS this way,  living,  how we just DO and TRY and Go,  every day.  And it doesn't really "amount" to all that much,  but that it's just so very OK.   It HAPPENED.  

She falls asleep and now in this day,  staring out with some kind of ennui, that has prevailed since she has been here,  she knows she is repeating.  And how will it go this time?  Her  most probably, Final time?   

 

 

 

 

 

 

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39 responses to “field notes. Old mother dreams”

  1. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    Grace sending you love. Wishing I could sit with you in the Janet chairs and talk about all this.
    share words and feelings and then just share the quiet.

    Like

  2. yvette Avatar

    Goat woman, you made paradise of your piece of dessert, you change your place of the hill into paradise by just going on where you left…honouring mother earth and listening to her……hugs
    Especially for Tay.
    Sorry for being so long invisible
    Love you more

    Like

  3. Deb Lacativa Avatar

    Isn’t that strange. My “eyes open” time is 4:30am est. The train doesn’t wake me anymore. I wait for it to come and go and then fall back to sleep. Then come the dreams that are not connected to any reality. Someone else’s dreams I think sometimes.
    As much as you let me, us, in to the life in the dessert, I always had a feeling that it was un-anchored, temporary. A layover. Now, I feel your roots waiting to flex, dig in an give sustenance.

    Like

  4. Michelle Slater Avatar

    It’s 2:41 AM Tuesday morning the 27th of March in Manhattan. Not a sound but me tapping on these keys. Your dream and what followed was so much like being with you and yet we’ve never actually occupied any space but this one and those few welcome phone conversations. I’m finding it astounding the level of intimacy that these communications can engender. Of course I have your hand work of cloths I see daily and you may have some things I sent but I can’t recall what. I will return to this post when I’ve had a bit of sleep, but suddenly I’m soooooo tired I have to lay this body down a while. For now, I send my virtual love vibrating from my real heart.

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  5. Patricia Avatar

    Sometimes I stare into my closet. Notice how few things are there. How strange/odd/worn/mended everything looks. Some might say “shabby rags.” And I imagine my kids opening that closet door and just shaking their heads. Thinking “this is what she left behind?” I think about this sometimes. What does it mean? The accumulation of things we’ll leave behind. The objects that marked our place here? And part of me says “it doesn’t mean anything—will soon be forgotten, discarded, made meaning-less.” Still, I sense the other thing—the part that just keeps going, radiating out. Into the cosmos. The other thing—energy?—waves of invisible currentts?—something. And I wonder, when we utter words, the sound waves from those words—where do they go? Do they ever end? Do they ever stop moving? And our actions? Then it’s clearer to me. Everything leaves a mark and it may or may not matter to anyone else. And that doesn’t matter either. Not really.

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  6. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Grace … everything Michelle said .. about loving you … never having really met but know each other’s voices. I wrote you a card yesterday and will post it today. But in that card I wrote … I miss you. As soon as I wrote it I though well that’s weird because it is something I always add to cards and letters sent to my sister’s. But Grace it really is not weird at all because from the first you welcomed me into your heart and well … I love it here. Thank you Grace and to the rest of you beautiful spirit’s who open your heart’s to me and each other. We are family!

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  7. Patricia Avatar

    Interrupted before I finished. Rather than being so long winded I should have said…”you matter. A Lot.”

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  8. beth Avatar

    I feel your words in the center of my chest.

    Like

  9. Patty Avatar

    Dreams are doorways, gifts, I believe. How awake you are, even
    while you’re sleeping.

    Like

  10. Mo Crow Avatar

    the space in between where anything is possible

    Like

  11. Peggy McG Avatar
    Peggy McG

    One word comes to mind. Echo. Echo. echo.
    Love is echoing.

    Like

  12. Angie Avatar

    Your being here provides an anchor for me. There is comfort with you. I struggle so hard with change, and although I don’t, and haven’t in the past, join in here in the comments very often, I Have been here for quite a few years now, and I struggled with your moving. I sense that your spirit is now in both NM and there in CA. As Peggy McG said….echos. I’m just so happy that you are still ‘here’, and and that life for you there on The Hill is becoming more comfortable and familiar for you. Namaste, dear Grace.

    Like

  13. jaime Avatar
    jaime

    A big hug to you,Grace. A big, long, strong hug. Yesterday I thought of writing a letter to the strangers who bought my house in the woods for 30 years. I wanted to tell them to SEE the Coltsfoot,Troutlilly, Bloodroot,Spring Beauties, Wild Geranium (AKA Herb Robert), Soloman’sSeal,Violets,Liverwort, that all grew around the Mountain Laurel and wild honeysuckle before I moved there. They were my friends. I wanted them to know they will be coming out, just look for them.
    My mother died earlier this month.She was blessed with peace at the end. Quiet, ladylike peace.
    For now, I am a human being, not a human doing. I don’t know what is next. I’m tired and will wait for the next sign.I am intact even if most of the boxes from 2 years ago are still waiting to be unpacked. I believe it all really does matter.
    You really do matter. Thank you.

    Like

  14. grace Forrest Avatar

    you are never invisible..i feel/see you in so many places

    Like

  15. grace Forrest Avatar

    un~anchored. these thoughts are very interesting, Very…
    what gave you that sense of it…
    ?
    did I feel that? a sense of unanchored? these are important questions to me now

    Like

  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes. your very real heart

    Like

  17. grace Forrest Avatar

    the thing that radiates out…the energy, touching, and
    in the touching, changing all that is touched

    Like

  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    as do you. how it feels to see you “here”

    Like

  19. grace Forrest Avatar

    we open to Love. and it comes. in whatever form, it comes.
    I have no sisters and so for me, this Circle here is
    beyond anything i might have imagined….

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  20. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes. that’s where they come from in me

    Like

  21. grace Forrest Avatar

    for me…the dreams..what they most give is the assurance that no matter how odd, no matter how strange, Things are always just ok. Just so much ok.

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  22. grace Forrest Avatar

    where EveryThing is possible, and IS.

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  23. grace Forrest Avatar

    love this…echo
    give and receive are ONE.

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  24. grace Forrest Avatar

    Angie…we will watch it as it goes….this life here…
    I love that you offer this, of your own life, it matters to me and helps me Understand the thing of ECHO. And the importance of just being here, remaining, going
    THANK YOU for your words
    Love and Love to you and Namaste

    Like

  25. grace Forrest Avatar

    it all does matter, doesn’t it. it does all matter.
    I read this and SAW what you tell, your love of Place, the
    passing of a mother, your waiting for a sign

    Like

  26. Deb Avatar

    The constant state of flux, mostly for the sake of the herd. Panels here, fencing changed. The cycles of their lives, much shorter than humans, dominated yours. You snatched leftovers for yourself, mostly of time. The Albatross, the Island – all mutable. And you were always ready for the changes, open to or making the options. Your strength.

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  27. grace Forrest Avatar

    ah. the cycles, dominating. Still. Snatching time.
    what is mutable, what is not.
    these words open a WINDOw

    Like

  28. dee Avatar

    I wish I could see the stars through your eyes, but for now I wander through the BIG SPACE of your dream and feel it to be partly my dream too, especially as I help my sister with ‘her last move’. Your lack of attachment must be the source of the expanse… do you think? I feel sad at the idea of looking over a former life and having it not really add up to much, and you do not. I keep thinking about that box coming to the Hill for you to live in. A virginal space. A place to begin again. But you must miss the wind?

    Like

  29. Michele Avatar
    Michele

    I have this dream too of the big house with the hallways and hidden rot. Next time I’m there I will look for you. I’ll wear a blue scarf so you’ll know it’s me.

    Like

  30. grace Forrest Avatar

    the lack of attachment does not come with the lack of Love.
    Love remains the overriding motion of it, but love is not tethered, is fluid and is All of it…There, Here. I am deeply grateful to my buddhist practice.
    the only reason it doesn’t add up to much is that i wanted too much from it. That land there, it couldn’t. It
    tried. Over and over and it couldn’t.I will never stop loving it, loving the Trying there. But, it’s Now, now and time to learn how to be here.
    Yup, that box. Also not much. But More Trying.
    Wind…today i watched gentle Wind sway those 100ft Pines.
    Not the Crazy Wind, but soft Wind and i am grateful.

    Like

  31. grace Forrest Avatar

    Oh!, how this made me SMILE….it’s almost time now almost time for sleep and i am still Smiling, knowing how to find you….blue scarf….YES….Michele….

    Like

  32. ² Avatar
    ²

    al those little story’s and your answers , we are like sisters of the same big heart …. everyone life at his place … different.. but the same … its all about learn and love … big hug to you and ALL of you

    Like

  33. Nancy Avatar

    Love and Light to you at this time.

    Like

  34. Nancy Avatar

    For me there was a bitter-sweet feeling reading this post. I remember you of the desert, for so many years. I feel the waiting and sense of unease (perhaps) in the waiting of now. Even as just a reader here, there are things I will miss of NM…but also things I know I will grow to know and love of NoCal. Connections to both places pull me in to your daily story.
    The lasting of stuff or even of our own impact is less and less bitter-sweet to me as I land in that place for myself. And the ways of dreams fascinate me to no end. My dream last night involved my friend of 41 years…her face was vacant and when I walked away, she followed – to ‘kill’ me! Yikes! Not sure I want to know any meaning to that one!! lol (((hugs))) to you in your time of remembering, waiting, becoming…living. xo

    Like

  35. grace Forrest Avatar

    the YouMeUs…it’s the light shinning on the path, yes.

    Like

  36. grace Forrest Avatar

    i don’t look for meanings to my dreams…they are
    just nuts, really.
    i do take note of constant Themes.
    And the fact that no matter what’s going on IN them,
    i always am just going along, no worry, Just Going.

    Like

  37. dee Avatar

    I can feel the love… it’s the absence of sadness that struck me.

    Like

  38. Wendy@ Late StartStudio Avatar

    Dreaming back and forth . . . yes. Each place that I land for a time, I wonder how long I’ll stay and as much as I love this place, it’s just a place and there is part of me wanting to up and go. My wake up and wonder time is about 2:30 as well and pondering this feeling of itchy feet occupies my mind. I have all I need, more than I want but still it’s there . . . storms taking sand from the dunes don’t help.

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