Dreams of Sea Lions

Last night, when I took the dogs outside to pee, I smelled that gorgeous fall scent of wood smoke and damp, cool air, and instead of feeling nostalgia or that bittersweet ache, I felt something different. That smell always made me long for something, and I never knew what.

Now I know what I wanted. I wanted all of this. This life. This wife, these dogs, this house, these sisters close to me, these friends, this exact career, bumps at all. I’m not longing anymore. I’m not waiting for the someday I’ve yearned for since I was old enough to hope for my future. It’s an astonishing discovery, actually, and it puts me off balance.

Of course, I still have wants. I want to be the Tim Gunn of memoir someday (knowledgeable, warm, kind, very nattily dressed). More money would be nice. A decent retirement account in the bank sure would be welcome.

But I possess this glorious dream, and wood smoke now just smells beautiful, instead of bittersweet.

This does mean I need to start asking what’s the next big dream, the one that attaches to this one?

In literal dreams, this morning I dreamed I married a sea lion shapeshifter in New Zealand. She was really nice and I loved her, but I found her smell and her barking annoying, and after I married her, I suddenly remembered that I already had a wife I was in love with, but she and her family said they’d come along to our house in the States, and everything would be fine – they wouldn’t mind Lala being there. While neither of us is a jealous person, I wasn’t sure Lala would feel the same way.

So I’d like to state for the record that my next big dream involves no sea lions at all.