Last night I dreamed I was in a darkened hall filled with far too many people that I cared about, who crowded too close to me, some wanting to hug me, or to converse with me—or perhaps even to say goodbye. They were all there, the old boyfriends, ex lovers, even my former partner. My long-dead grandmother, where was my mother? MIA most of my life. Some thing never change. I’m having personal space boundary issues. No one was keeping social distance, no one was masked. Maybe it no longer mattered. Maybe this was it. The last hurrah, the long goodbye. The hubbub and roar of things left too long unsaid was palpable. No more pretense. To mask, or not to mask, that is no longer the question. We are all unmasked by this disease, and have entered into the third realm. I found myself freaking out, thinking, We’re all going to die. Shouting at my friends, and relatives—Keep your distance. Quarantine, thy name is.... Hold on. Thinking, it’s hopeless. Trying not to breathe. The very thing we need to do right now, is remember to breathe. To focus. How do we circumvent the futility of our dreams? We have entered a new realm—the lucid art of Covid dreaming. Meanwhile, the earth abides. When’s the last time you were hugged? This is a question for those of us who are alone in this madness. The other week, an old friend hugged me. I had all kinds of reactions, it dawned on me that I hadn’t been hugged in nearly a year. I burst into tears. I find myself making drawings of places I’ve never been, a landscape of hope on my bucket list, God willing. We will abide, our hearts will lead us, show us the way home. This what love is.
—for Laura Austin Wiley, who dreams she is being served cake, the final dessert, the endgame. But there’s always a cheese plate. —with love.
Bucket list. Fjaðrárgljúfur Gorge, SE Iceland. Rebecca Schultz went to Iceland and did these fantastic canvases of rock formations, which inspired me, then, and when I saw photos of this gorge with the unpronounceable name, I had to draw it.
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