I gave it my best shot.

Fortunately, I haven't been dreaming. I've been crying, but not crying myself to sleep, crying red eyed and puffy staring at the ceiling, wondering how a heart can break so many times. Wondering why it feels like I've been punched in the gut over and over.

I daydream instead. I fantasize that hundreds of white doves carry me away and put me down somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Over the holidays I spent the night on the floor of LAX airport after two of my flights were canceled. LAX is an appropriate place for the broken of spirit and heart. Everyone is weary. We sleep with our heads on the floor with the exception of the lucky ones who packed cute moon shaped pillows in their carry-ons. I sleep on my tiny Coach bag having forgotten to take a decent carry-on, cursing my sense of good fashion. My hair branches out over the floor amongst dust bunnies and Starbuck stains. I refuse not to be bitter. We traveling refugees are the damned.

My niece Lia is with my family when I do finally make it to the Sea-Tac airport in Seattle, crusty eyed and cursing. At three she is precocious. She tells me that she dreamed a burgler stole my seat on the plane but she saved me by sticking a candy cane in his mouth.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

She endured the most severe trials with a calmness,
fortitude and resignation which are the best proofs
of the innocence of her life.

Epitaph, Halifax Cemetary

My dreams are filled with sand, enough sand to fill the Sahara. I taste it in my mouth, crunch it between my teeth, see it spilling from blood blossoming lips. It always tastes of the salt of 10,000 seas.

My assistant Will and I take a four wheel drive truck up a lonely dirt road in the dead of night. I see large black hounds outside the windows. Their backs are long and arched like hyenas but their much larger, longlegged like great danes, and their shaggy, black pelts fall in greasy, foot long locks. I try to avoid their menacing stares but when I do I realize that they have human eyes, knowledgable, ruthless eyes. Not the innocent eyes of hungry animals. They frighten me terribly.

Suddenly Will and I are without the protection of the car and the long legged hounds are approaching. I can only see their ashy shadows in the darkness. We progress on foot, only keeping them at bay by throwing sand in their eyes.

I find myself in Saudi Arabia at a rich gala. Women take off their black veils, djellabas, to reveal olive skin adorned with skimpy cocktail dresses. Diamonds and gold, lots of gold, hang from olive colored wrists. My swarthy handsome date holds my hand daintily and high. My fingers barely touch his. My wrist is cocked. Like a lady, I think. Beautiful petite arabic delicacies come to my lips but all I taste is salt and the consistency of sand. My throat is dry. We laugh heartily at the waiters who are serving Arabs wine from the Napa Valley.

I find myself in the high esachlon hotel where the gala was held. I'm lost, I can't find my room. My high heels skid on someones loose pearls that are scattered on the marble floors. I find my room and lock the door behind me, adrift with De ja vu. I find myself alone again, another motel room. Have i been here before? I pull back the sheets, a layer of fine, white sand covers the pricey linen. Like a small sirocco finding its way home.

Note to Self...

Note to self: Never fall asleep watching America's Most Wanted

It makes for unpleasant dreamtime.