Do you ever wake up in the morning and realize that you dreamed you were much younger?
Sometimes I do that. And it’s a little unsettling. Because come morning I will stand in front of the mirror and see that I’m not that person, that young girl, anymore.
When outside the moon flowers are opening up to the silky black night, I am sometimes dreaming of being a girl again.
On Facebook I sometimes see people from my childhood, all grown up with families and grandchildren of their own. I peer at them and see little details that make them appear familiar again.
The shape of their eyes, their smile or the tilt of their head. It shakes out a passing memory of them, however fleeting.
It’s like walking back through the magic looking glass to another time and place. I have no need to contact them. Their role in my life was inconsequential. So why are they there in my dreams?
Would I want to go back and live that life again? No. It took many years for me to feel settled and have confidence in myself and my abilities. I wouldn’t want to go back to feeling so unsure of things again.
Just to be a young girl who merely wished to be someone else. Somewhere else. While many of my school mates stayed and lived their whole lives in a town I couldn’t wait to get out of.
I have to wonder if there is a reason why a person who had no bearing on my life and who I literally haven’t thought about in many years suddenly appears in a dream.
Is my brain merely sifting through my past and haphazardly plucking a cast of characters I’ve barely known willy-nilly?
No harm, no foul. Just a short trip back in time. When I occasionally dream of that young girl on the outside looking in.
Come morning as I stare into the mirror at the woman I am now, I know that no one can outrun time. Or put a cork in a bottle to pause it.
And really would you even want to?
It’s just a dream of another chapter in my life that is conjured up like magic while the moon flowers outside my window begin to take shape. They will open and close while I dream my dreams and then disappear when sunlight appears.
As the day stretches on, the shape of the puzzle pieces fall away. The dream grows distant in my memory. And then before I know it it’s gone altogether.
Back into that dark place where dreams go.
Just like moon flowers.
I know this is an old post but it’s truly poetic and beautiful. I just turned 40 and I honestly don’t know how I got here so fast!My mom always told me in my teens that once you hit that pinnacle age of 21 your life just seems to fly by and boy was she RIGHT about that and oh so many other things that moms just know!I know my mother would have loved this post as she was a plant lover just as I am. I just started 3 moon flowers from seed and they are growing at the speed of light in my windowsill so this post caught my eye.Thank you for your beautiful words…
Beautiful! How eloquent and thought provoking.. i love my Moon Flowers too!
I am 76 years young. I am so grateful to be alive and have access to you who is so eloquent and creative and loving. Thank you for adding beauty to my life.
Brenda- I really enjoyed this post today.I grow and enjoy moonflowers also. I do wish that I could go back in time- not to stay – just to visit! People that have passed on – just one more hug- one more laugh- one more cup of coffee with them, Not to change anything- just to savor it more.
Beautiful, Brenda. I was thinking the other day about how many wonderful, positive changes you have made in the time that I have known you. What makes us disappointed when we look into the mirror at our aging bodies is only about the standards that society places on us. You are a beautiful woman. xo Laura
Such a thought provoking post and written almost in poetic form… just lovely. Just got home from a visit to my hometown. Makes me so wistful for my youth and at times I’d like to go back and change a few things and other times… leave well enough alone.
These days I look in my mirror as I am getting ready for the day and I have to wonder who is looking back at me. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the 19-year-old girl I use to be ( I’m 57) and just really wonder where all that time is gone, and no amount of wishing will ever give me some of that time back. I am happy though because I am happy with me just the way I am.,
P.S. I just looked at today’s photos again. If you were to offer those images for sale, I would be the first in line! I mean it!
Lovely, meditative post, Brenda. And the photos are exceptionally beautiful. I especially like the one with the flowers silhouetted against the orange background. I am so envious of you being able to grow the magical moonflower vine. I have tried a couple times and have had no luck at all. Maybe I will give it a go again next Spring.
It is mysterious why certain people from our past appear in our dreams. Maybe remembering them is helping us work out something emotionally from our past or present. Or confirming something we think or know in the present. Or, maybe they mean nothing other than the fact that those people and/or places are stored away somewhere in the back of our brain and something in our present triggers us to bring them out in our dreams. A mystery, indeed.
Hope Charlie is doing okay today and Ivy is staying out of trouble. Also that the beginning of your week is peaceful.
I always enjoy reading what you have written. But I must tell you that on this post your writing was outstanding. I especially loved the comparison of the moonflower fading and disappearing as the day goes on just as our dreams from the evening fade. Thank you for this lovely Post. I, too, often wonder why our minds choose to revisit people from our past who do not play important roles in our current lives. What gives me even more food for thought is why I sometimes dream about people, who as far as I remember, are people I have never known in my life at all. I always wonder if I will be seeing and knowing them in real life sometime in the future.
Lovely words. The flowers re beautiful.
Marilyn
That was so beautiful Wow do you have a way with words. You are very talented in being able to write so well. It’s just like magic.
I am 68 and going to my 50 th High School Reunion soon. So this post has brought back to me some memories and deep thoughts . Thank you.
I believe God has given each one of us a special talent. I was an RN and my friend was a teacher. No way could I have been a teacher. And she has said no way could she be an RN.
I sometimes dream about people that I have no idea if I know. The other night, there were some people in my dream who seemed familiar, but I when I woke up, I wondered if I had ever known them, or had they been on a TV show? Maybe they were just generic people! I just don’t know. Also, I love to sleep with the windows open at night to hear the crickets. It reminds me so much of childhood. I like to think that something special is going on out there while everyone is asleep. Sometimes deer walk through our yard, and the other night, I thought I heard a male deer snorting. I got excited and told my husband to listen. It happened again. I sat up and peeked out the window, hoping to see a big deer with some antlers. Instead, I saw a movement out by the street and realized I was hearing a neighbor pull a plastic trash can to the curb! The plastic scraping across the blacktop sounded so similar to the gravelly whoosh whoosh sound of a deer snorting. I was so disappointed! But, on many mornings, I do see deer prints in a strip of and gravel along the street, and I know that some magic did happen when the deer walked through the neighborhood.
Brenda you have such a gift with words. Beautiful.
Kris
Beautifully written, your words resonated with me today ?
Yes, I have strange dreams like that, too. I often wonder why someone that I haven’t thought of in many years all of a sudden pops up in my dreams.
Sometimes I’d like to go back to the past and do things over and other times I think, no way.
This is one of those posts that remind us what a fantastic writer you are. Great job!
What an insightful analogy. And beautifully presented. Thank you for your words.
Such beautiful writing.