in my dreams

Sometimes, in my dreams I can breath underwater. Other times I fly. I just aim my face to the sky and slowly lift off the ground. Most often I dream of flying at night, looking down on darkened houses, purple beaches, and the tops of swaying evergreens, sometimes having to dodge and dart between power lines. Mostly, I am in control of where I soar, as if on thermals, and I alone posses this gift. Often, I am trying to help lost souls find their way, navigating and calling to them from above the earth. In other dreams I try to hide my gift of flying from villains who would attempt to shoot me down.

Other times I dream of Calvin having seizures, only to wake minutes before he launches into one.

Once in a blue moon I dream of Calvin talking to me.

Last night, though, I dreamt that I discovered ropy scars in each crease between Calvin's thighs and hips. These wounds were due to the rigid plastic tabs of his diapers being positioned too low and therefore cutting into his skin. I winced when I found them, then felt a sinking in my gut thinking my poor boy suffers so very much.

This morning, after the nightmare about his wounds, he had another grand mal on the heels of yesterday morning's one. December had begun fairly well, with just two grand mals by mid month and only one day with a spate of partials. But epilepsy has a way of catching up, of not allowing much down time, rest time, time to recover. If Calvin is not having a day with seizures, it seems he is ramping up to or recuperating from one.

As I lie next to Calvin in bed after he suffers these fits, and in my wicked state of chronic sleep deprivation, I sometimes lament my life situation—stuck in this flat New England town with little to do, stuck in my writing a bit, stuck indoors with a seizing child, stuck in this cold, somewhat isolated part of the world. I lament the state of things in this nation with its sick president and its hypocritical, greedy, disingenuous republican congress bent on twisting the truth just like their unhinged leader can't help but do. I lament the growing divide between the working masses and the wealthy few, the damage cabinet members are doing to the departments they've been hired to marshal, the turning of the clock backwards to a time when polluting earth, air and rivers was okay to do, when women's rights were kicked to the curb, when overt racism and mob justice ruled, when only white men reigned, when the disabled weren't given a place at the table, when the only people whose religion was protected were Christians, and when folks couldn't marry whom they wanted to.

I want to float on a thermal into the future where none of this is true.

In winter, a few nights each week, Michael and I watch the PBS news hour where we see stories of the world we wouldn't see on network news. I watch accounts of war, famine and genocide. I watch stories of the injustices of racial and religious discrimination. I see evidence of poverty and corruption, disease, neglect and mass starvation. I choose to bear witness to these avoidable atrocities—pain, anguish and suffering which our current administration's rhetoric and policies exacerbate. I am angry. I am tired. I am ashamed of the contemptible president and GOP congresspeople who claim to be leaders of this beautiful nation and all of its people, not just the few. They are not champions of truth, justice or morality.

Thinking back to my dream about Calvin's scars, I wonder what it means other than it is something of concern when he is in the care of others; I've seen the diaper tabs cause red marks and welts that must hurt. Then, I think about flying and of the free feeling of breathing underwater, and I wonder when we'll surface from this nightmare of relentless seizures, this nightmare of a depraved and hurtful regime.

Photo by Michael Kolster