Writings in the Sand

April is the Cruellest Month

This morning, the conversation over "SMALL TALK "  is about dreams. Well, it's also about cheese but that's not going to come up in this blog post so we'll just concentrate on dreams. My last blog was about dreams, too. Over at Small Talk, Solace.Bring asks about three topics that come up in your dreams from time to time. My answer: " Three topics that come up into my dreams from time to time are my childhood home, people who have passed on, and hiding from some unknown danger."

And strangely, just after I posted that, I opened an old poetry file at random which appears to have been created at this same time of year a few years back (Google docs says it was April 2023), and found this little poem tucked into the scramble of ramblings --

The weight of the blanket
comforts, it’s a warm arm draped
across my shoulders, even though
the chill of a spring morning
leaks through the window casement.
The birds sing the songs of my youth
ancient trills that convey their secrets
they will sing long after I am gone
and call to others who lie abed
but for this moment, I am lost in reverie
with no desire to greet a new day
satisfied with drowsy memories
my eyes unopened.


I am beginning to wonder if this yearning to enter into an unchanged past through dreams and the resistance to reality is a sign of senility or if it is just the natural reaction to a world that has changed in so many ways and brought so many losses. I am not sure nostalgia is a disease, even when one prefers to stay in the warm embrace of memories and linger in the presence of those who no longer inhabit the physical world. I think it may be emotional defense, a way to preserve sanity rather than give in to unspeakable grief.