Harvest Moon

We’ve a harvest moon this week and many people swear a new set of dreams has come in with it. I read a manuscript yesterday by a woman who thought, as a young girl, that her dreams came in through her ears, like fairy dust or radio waves, and if she woke up from a bad dream she’d stuff her pillows against both ears to keep the nightmare from coming back in.

As a kid, I had some recurring dreams that have never come back to me as an adult. The exhilarating dream was one where I could fly. I flew low over the sidewalks and boulevard trees; I flew high over vast fields of corn and wheat. It was like I had taken a big hit of oxygen right before waking up—that’s how good I felt after that dream, the dual pleasure of fulfillment and weightlessness—and it was the probably the closest I had come to a state of transcendental meditation, at least until my feet hit the hardwood floors.

My recurring nightmare was always set along the Mekong River. My dad was in Vietnam and while he never wrote home about the Mekong (he rarely left Saigon or now Ho Chi Minh City), I saw plenty of footage about the river, or Tonle Thom (great river). I too flew in that nightmare but I was in a low-altitude fighter jet following the great river like those zooming Galactic crafts in Star Wars. I was terrified of the bends and turns and I remember my silent screams, “Please don’t kill anyone, please don’t kill anyone.”

My daughter had the night terrors for awhile, especially after her little brother was born. She was always dreaming that someone was going to snatch him away. Her bedroom dormer window peeks out over the front walk and once she woke up startled—and heard a car door slam outside. She got up on her knees and lifted one small slat of her window blinds. She saw a man walking toward the house, closer and closer. It seemed to be the dead of night. She panicked as she saw him walk up our steps. Closer and closer and she didn’t know if she would scream or cry. Then he threw the rolled-up Star Tribune up against our door hard. Only she didn’t know that. She came barging into our bedroom, her face white with fear. It scared the wits out of us, too, her barging in, and it took us all awhile to calm our hearts and explain the paper delivery.

Last night I attended a wine party. One of our hosts has a brother who owns all the MGM Liquors in town. Every couple of months or so she buys a few cases and about thirty women get together to drink and talk. Last night’s theme was Italian wine. I drank lots of good white wines—all the way until midnight. When I got home I had a bit of cinnamon toast and a cup of tea and hit the sack. The nearly full moon was out there, I knew it. I thought maybe the good flying dream might come back, only this time I’d be flying over vineyards in Tuscany. I can’t remember my dreams but I felt a little less burdened this morning. I think it might be the moon. That or all the wine. A nice way to start a Friday.