August Morning

It is the first of the month. I wrote the rent check at the kitchen table this morning in the quiet between 5 and 6 o’clock. It is a familiar time to me in these rooms.

Without straining, I let part of a dream return.

I am sitting at another table in last night’s dream. I am explaining something to a small group of people around me. Among them and seated directly across from me is Anne, a woman in her eighties whom I have known for almost thirty years. Every meeting with her over those years, not one of them planned or expected, she has been gracious and centered. She is listening to me now with her usual attention.

I have reached an important part of the explanation. Is it the plot of a fairy tale or myth or heroic fantasy? Whatever it is, I know clearly what I have to say next, but emotion makes speaking difficult.

I look across to Anne:

“You have to go to your deepest fear – or your hardest sorrow. That’s the door. You go in there if you hope to make it through.”