Perspective

Depends where you are, I guess. 

I got my Covid results back yesterday. Negative. So I traveled through two high risk states without consequence, and that concern is now behind me. Out of mind. I'm worried about the election. The direction of the country.

I spoke to a lady who'd come from Idaho. Her lungs were bothering her from all the smoke in the air. The smoke came from the fires in Oregon and California. That got me thinking about a friend in the San Francisco area so I reached out to her.

She told me it was night for a week there. The sun had actually been blotted out. The end is nigh, she said without irony. Come east, I suggested, we don't know that here yet. Maybe you'll forget. It's September. The leaves are changing and the nights are cool. She said she wanted to, but flying now didn't seem safe. She leans toward anxiety and depression during less stressful times. All of this happening is just proof.

I go to sleep later and dream that I am taking a rafting trip. I guess I'm on a river. The water is deep. A couple, two women, head out together before me. They're happy. I'm alone but undaunted. It crosses my mind that a raft may be awkward to paddle with just one person. I am sitting in the raft thinking this when the woman managing the business hands me the paddle. The paddle is a round point shovel. I push off from the shore. 

The woman managing the business is joking with me from somewhere behind me. I can hear her voice. She makes a suggestion that I can no longer remember. Next, the entire raft is under the surface of the water. Before I can respond it sinks to the bottom taking me down with it. Below, it's a forest of aquatic plants growing up toward the filtered light. It's all green. I move for a minute, trying, but it's not a struggle. I want to swim up but I'm not getting there. Drowning is different than I imagined. It happens quicker. 

You can't die in a dream, I'm thinking, but here I am. 

Everything is changing, the scenery is no longer a river bottom, but something surreal and alarming. Not of this world. And I am there now.