Would have been our 43rd wedding anniversary

Woke up this morning (Friday), the morning of what would have been our 43rd wedding anniversary, from a very strange and vivid dream.

In the dream I am at a fashion shoot. I am sitting in a lounge chair off to the side observing. Comfortable. Waiting. There are young models posing for different photographers. I watch one young girl/woman who uses the same technique for each photographer. I think she was going to hit the wall when all her shots are reviewed and the editor see the same poses again and again (too many America's Next Top Model episodes?)

The shoot starts in a studio, but as in dreams, it is then on a beach. There are white curtains, billowing in the wind.The models are in bathing suits and every one of them is wearing the same shoe. I see it with amazing detail—platform, sandals with lots of straps (gladiator style) in an sort of olive green. And in my dream I hear the word alligator. Okay alligator platform gladiator sandals. Do not understand the meaning of this. Just recording my dream.

My husband comes in. He is THE photographer. He bends down to kiss me. Just the barest brush of lips. I don't have words for the feelings that well up. I so yearn for a deep passionate kiss. I tell him how the touch of his skin, the touch of his arms makes me ache for him.

And then I am no longer on the beach with him. I only have that brief moment with him.  I am trying to get back. And I am running. It is a large city, and in one of those dream aerial views I see the beach and the white billowing curtains way off in the distance. And I am running. Running through crowds of people. Running on the street with cars. Running Running Running.

I'm dressed in a beautiful black horizontally pleated bathing suit (too many Project Runways episodes?) with flat straps and those alligator platform gladiator sandals are in my hand. Not good running shoes.

The city feels European. England? No France? Or Italy? Wide boulevards. Round-abouts. Narrow lanes. Crowded with people. Crowded with tourists. But all the roads lead straight to the beach. No, all the roads lead straight to my husband.

The traffic is intense and I decide to cut through the neighborhoods. Away from the crowds and traffic. Up a steep hill. A familiar dream sequence of mine is going up hills on all fours, using my hands to grab the cobblestones to pull me up. Move faster and faster. All this running is effortless. I can go on forever.

My shortcut is taking me off course. I am loosing time. My dream says this is Rio de Janeiro. And I continue to run. Through narrow streets. Passing children playing. Women hanging out laundry. Teenage boys malingering. Running Running Running.

I cut across the hill and head back down into the city. And find myself in an affluent shopping district with cobble stoned streets, ornate store fronts....and weathered bronze sculptures. Of soldiers and jeeps. World War II vintage. Apparently I am back in Europe. And bronze dog heads that commemorate the "unleashing of the dogs of war" by the Allies. The heads are suspended in mid air, they come out of the walls of the buildings, they are everywhere when you look up.

And my phone rings. It is my husband's assistant who tells me the shot is wrapping up and where I am? I try and explain that I have been trying to get back. That I've been running running  running. And she hangs up. And I am left alone.



Yearn, verb: have an intense feeling of longing for something or someone, typically one that has lost or been separated from.

A thought occurs to me that I am searching this world for Rob. Running and looking everywhere.  

And another thought, this one I'll hold on to tightly. He came back to give me a kiss on our anniversary.