The pain is real. It’s here: concrete, insistent, physical even. The renewed waves of grief are washing over me again already, physically painful and profoundly lonely.
Last night, I dreamt that I was crossing a sea, THE SEA, i.e. the Atlantic Ocean, in a big ship sailing across through huge waves in a violent storm. I was scared and the people with me were afraid, too — strangers who knew nothing about sailing and were truly terrified of the gale. But my fear was limited, under control, quite rational and even peaceful in some way. I knew the ship was built to sustain, to navigate through, such stormy weather and make it safely to the other side. So I trusted it would. I braced myself, I did what I could to ease my discomfort in that difficult moment, even finding the courage to look out of the ship’s portholes, out at the storm, out at the huge waves that seemed like they would engulf the ship and annihilate us any moment. I looked out, scared, uncomfortable, but still trusting. And also making peace with the possibility that the ship might not make it through the storm “alive” or whole. But I knew that the ship (or its captain) was doing its best, and that was enough. Somehow that was enough.
And eventually the ship got itself & all of us passengers safely to the other side, to the other coast, to Europe.
And it did so by navigating through the huge stormy waves in a new and unusual way: instead of sailing straight across them in a straight line, it moved forward in a sort of horizontal spiral motion, revolving on itself (like pirouetting) to sort of “flatten out” some of the volume of the waves, as if making some extra space for itself, smoothing a little more of the water’s rough surface, while moving forward — or in order to move forward.
Weird and dizzying and confusing… but it worked!
What is this dream saying to me, about me, about life?
That I can weather this storm, too, I can navigate these difficult moments once again; and maybe, also, that although it might feel to me that I’m treading water and only moving in circles, I actually still am moving forward nonetheless — and maybe it’s precisely these circles that are keeping my ship afloat?
Maybe this dream is also telling me that I can go back to Europe, i.e. I’ll be able to endure it, if/when I ever decide to embark on that voyage (be it only a visit)?
For now — here & now — what I need to navigate is this current pain, this current painful loneliness, the current losses: these current renewed & huge waves of grief washing over me (again).
The Little Prince and the Fox 