Long Night

I bet I woke up 20 times last night.  There's no explanation for the restlessness that had me constantly turning over, checking the clock.  There's no explanation for the dreams, either, bad ones, the kind that usual presage horrible things coming.  I dreamed of my grandmother last night, usually a harbinger of something bad happening in my family, but she wasn't in the hospital, and she wasn't trying to tell me anything.  Instead, she was trying to give me something.  She was with my great-aunt, also gone now, and they were putting on dresses from a giant closet.  They looked happy.  Maybe that dream isn't a bad one....

The old dream I have where things happen to my house, where someone has devastated things outside, but I can't see who, was back last night.  They always leave signs that they've been there, subtle marks or pieces of broken things on the porch.  I know I am being stalked.  There's always the sense that if I could just turn fast enough or if I were just paying enough attention, I could catch them.  I know they are hiding in the treeline around the yard or sometimes even closer than that, but I can't ever see them. I hate that dream.

I'm sure all of this is just fodder for psychoanalysis, but I don't really care to walk down that path.  I just know that they disturb me.  Since when I dream, they are always vivid, I almost think I preferred it when the Topamax was keeping me from remembering any of them at all.

Now I'm awake and moving, more or less, having watched my iPhone light up and go off, taken my shower, eaten my Nutella and wheat bread, and downloaded the Josh Ritter album I've been waiting for.  (Amazon and I do a lot of early-morning business since I stopped being silly and staying up to midnight for stuff to come out, you see.)  I hope the lingering unease of these dreams will melt away with Josh Ritter's voice and the morning sun.  I can't really think of a better combination to drive out dark things from the night, actually.