close, vivid, saturated

I dreamed I was driving through the red rock formations of Sedona. They were close, vivid, saturated. Even in the dream I could feel how breathtaking it was, how stunning. Then later, running along a seaside path in the dark. Lights from distant houses beckoning.

That summer in Sedona when W was young. I remember we cast long shadows on the dusty ground. Sometimes in the afternoons, we drove out to the public pool and I sat at the edge watching while he splashed. I have always felt conspicuous, mothering. Like who am I to know how to do this? I know only the fierceness of my longing to keep their small bodies close. I know the broad gestures of caretaking, feeding, bathing, but the daily, unstructured time as they grew older. How to approach the vast unknowability of their developing interiorities, those inner lives reaching. How fragile it all seemed, as if a thoughtless word or gesture from me might stamp something out, some possibility neither of us could imagine.

In the dream, I traversed landscapes. The desert, the ocean, and even, for a time, the city. Finding a long-forgotten acquaintance in the lobby of a hotel and making plans to meet up at another time that would never come to pass. Even in the dream, the persistence of the phone alerts, the messages and reminders of never quite being free from the needs and demands of others. But as I say this I know how often this tether can be our only lifeline.

Recently, I listened while someone relayed a story of feeling wounded. I can say, I suppose, that in the past weeks, I've received a great many such stories. It strikes me how infrequently in our day-to-day we are listened to, really. Or that we can truly say we are listening. How exhausting it is to drag all our wounds around when no one can hold them with us. Our joys, too. Isn't it all meant to be shared?