Learning to Swim

Disturbing dreams last night; in fact, they rattled me so much that I remember ordering the dream to stop at one point. Mom and Dad and I were all traveling, but they were going on ahead without me. We were able to keep in touch with each other from our various vehicles—they shifted from cars to motorcycles to planes—and I remember having “a few more things to do” before I could join them.

When they were on their plane, I could see it up in the sky, and its wings were suddenly ripped off, and the long cylinder started flipping and turning and swinging back and forth like some grotesque carnival ride. Then it stopped, clearly ready to plummet to earth, nose straight up in the air, and it started falling, heading right for me. I said, “Stop!” and made the plane freeze; it wasn’t that I was trying to change its (and my) fate, but I didn’t want to have to experience it in the dream. I wanted to go on to other dream-things.

And I did. There were several other sequences that I forget now, but there were also repeated images of me able to swim in what appeared to be puddles on the ground but which were surprisingly deep. They were the color of coffee with cream, and they were pleasantly warm but not at all hot. I swam bravely, boldly, with people looking at me, and I didn’t care, even though I’m pretty sure I was skinny-dipping.

When I got up this morning and looked at my Raven’s Brew coffee, I noticed the name of the variety: Resurrection Blend.

Today I cleaned out the refrigerator and scrubbed it down well. Not only did I get rid of the items that were past their prime, I got rid of anything that I would not be eating, which included some things that I had bought just for Mom. This evening I went to the local health food store, which has a small grocery section, and bought ingredients for miso soup (well, Adam has the miso, but I got everything except the bonito flakes, which I’ll probably find at an Asian grocery), then went to Publix and got ingredients for chicken stock and cabbage soup and more butternut squash soup.

I didn’t get anything just for Mom; I would always get her one or two things that she loved, just to brighten her day. This time I bought just for me. Coming home was especially lonely, and I thought of her and the dogs and, well, all those I’ve lost over the years, and blessed them all and cried a little for them. I know it was time; it’s always perfect timing for everyone involved, all of us joining the dance of the great Dao. But if we love someone, or if we love life, there is attachment, and breaking that attachment is hard. Buddha teaches us that attachment is the cause of suffering. But I think attachment, and thus suffering, tells us we’re alive, that we’re connected to one another, that we love that connection.

If Dao is the way water naturally runs downhill, finding its perfect path until it joins with the vast ocean of being, then I’m learning to swim. I may still be in the shallows, but it’s a pleasant and invigorating swim, and in its ripples I can hear whispers of rebirth.