Mothering from Beyond for 2020
Last night I had a dream. I dreamt of my mother.
The significance of this dream needs context. My mother has been dead for just shy of 18 years. I have rarely dreamt of my mother. I can count on one hand the number of times she's come to me in my dreams. I have rationalized that it is because we had nothing unsaid between us. We were the best of friends and laid it all out on the table. On the other hand, I sometimes get pissed that she does not make more frequent appearances.
We've all been anxious as 2020 comes to a close (good riddance), exacerbated by a huge helping of pandemic fatigue. I have not slept really well for a couple of weeks. I was particularly anxious last evening. 2020 has thrown us a handful of parting curveballs to get that final "screw you" in for the year. I took a calmative to help settle me for the night, hoping to sleep through most of it.
It was futile. I was restless, but I did manage to sleep deep enough for one part of the night to have a dream. My mother was putting me to sleep in my dream, as she had done when I was a young boy. The poor woman had to figure out how to calm a very ADD child so that both he and she could get some sleep. This was in the days before drugs and iPods and even ADD diagnoses were a thing. She would talk to me and stroke my hair. She had figured out that the repetitive sensory rhythm would eventually mesmerize me to sleep.
In my dream, she talked to me and ran her fingers along my scalp as she sat next to the bed. The only difference was that I was not a child in the dream; I was me. Me from now. Older, anxious, pandemic fatigued me. We talked about everything and nothing. It was glorious in its simplicity. That familiar set of sensations calming my mind and easing my anxiety.
Just before the dream ended, she said to me in her slight southern drawl: "It will all be okay, just breathe."
Maybe 2021 will be okay.
