I Have Weird Dreams
Here it is, 3:30 a.m. and I am awake after the weirdest dream I have had in awhile. I dreamed I lived in a large house we had built with our own hands, and we operated it as an Inn.
We had one permanent guest, an older woman, and I was a young girl. I was dressed in period clothing of the late 1700's, all in black....long full black skirt, long sleeves of black. We had just put up dinner for our guests, and I was working in the kitchen, which was just off the main room, and I was telling an older man that his dinner would be ready soon.
The baking was not done, so I went out to check on the animals, and I could smell a snow storm in the air.
As I checked on the horses, three men rode up, and I had a pitchfork in my hands, and braced myself as if to impale their horses. One man made as if to ride me down. They told me that they would burn down our house. I told them they must choose which fine horse of theirs would die before I did.
They wheeled their horses, and rode away, and I ran into the house to tell everyone what had happened.
My father told me that I must ride for help. "The 1764 survivors...they will help us. You must ride and fetch them". And so I did. I could see myself, as from an aerial view, as I rode the black mare...black on black...speeding through the landscape toward our only friends to ask for help.
I knew of the 1764 survivors. They had survived the harshest winter on record by grouping together into one house, where they burned giant pine logs, which gave off twice the heat of a normal wood fire. But they were also an odd group of people, quiet and insular.
My dream flashed forward.
Now I was back in front of the Inn, and we had lost to the vandals. They had piled hay all around the Inn behind me, and were trying to set it on fire. I threatened them again, with the pitchfork, and yet I could not prevent them from starting a fire.
Our friends finally arrived...the 1764 survivors, but they were too late. The house had burned down behind us. The Inn was gone. My father was gone. We did not know what had happened to the older woman who lodged with us. We thought she had headed to the East, but we didn't know for sure. We felt obligated to try to find her and help her. My mother, my sister and I were the only ones left.
We said to each other, which way would she have gone? And I pointed toward a rocky outcrop and some trees to our left, and I said I thought she might have gone that way.
We began to walk, and then we saw a figure at the top of the rock outcropping, walking slowly toward us. We could see that he was dressed all in tanned leathers made of animal hides, his pantaloons, his shirt...were all of the palest butternut, so we thought he might be a child of the forest at first, but as he drew nearer we could see he was a white man.
I raised one arm in greeting, and I said to him, "We are Pilgrims, like you."
And then I woke up.
Footnote: In the Americas, the French and Indian Wars ended by Treaty in the year 1764.
We had one permanent guest, an older woman, and I was a young girl. I was dressed in period clothing of the late 1700's, all in black....long full black skirt, long sleeves of black. We had just put up dinner for our guests, and I was working in the kitchen, which was just off the main room, and I was telling an older man that his dinner would be ready soon.
The baking was not done, so I went out to check on the animals, and I could smell a snow storm in the air.
As I checked on the horses, three men rode up, and I had a pitchfork in my hands, and braced myself as if to impale their horses. One man made as if to ride me down. They told me that they would burn down our house. I told them they must choose which fine horse of theirs would die before I did.
They wheeled their horses, and rode away, and I ran into the house to tell everyone what had happened.
My father told me that I must ride for help. "The 1764 survivors...they will help us. You must ride and fetch them". And so I did. I could see myself, as from an aerial view, as I rode the black mare...black on black...speeding through the landscape toward our only friends to ask for help.
I knew of the 1764 survivors. They had survived the harshest winter on record by grouping together into one house, where they burned giant pine logs, which gave off twice the heat of a normal wood fire. But they were also an odd group of people, quiet and insular.
My dream flashed forward.
Now I was back in front of the Inn, and we had lost to the vandals. They had piled hay all around the Inn behind me, and were trying to set it on fire. I threatened them again, with the pitchfork, and yet I could not prevent them from starting a fire.
Our friends finally arrived...the 1764 survivors, but they were too late. The house had burned down behind us. The Inn was gone. My father was gone. We did not know what had happened to the older woman who lodged with us. We thought she had headed to the East, but we didn't know for sure. We felt obligated to try to find her and help her. My mother, my sister and I were the only ones left.
We said to each other, which way would she have gone? And I pointed toward a rocky outcrop and some trees to our left, and I said I thought she might have gone that way.
We began to walk, and then we saw a figure at the top of the rock outcropping, walking slowly toward us. We could see that he was dressed all in tanned leathers made of animal hides, his pantaloons, his shirt...were all of the palest butternut, so we thought he might be a child of the forest at first, but as he drew nearer we could see he was a white man.
I raised one arm in greeting, and I said to him, "We are Pilgrims, like you."
And then I woke up.
Footnote: In the Americas, the French and Indian Wars ended by Treaty in the year 1764.
