Virus dreams

I’ve heard that strange, anxiety-tinged dreaming is something that many people are reporting as we hide from a virus. Last night I felt like my dreams were processing things I’m learning, or perhaps truly understanding for the first time.

I can’t remember it all. There was a large, shabby hotel that was mostly empty. My son and my daughter were there. There was something we were afraid of encountering. I suspect it was a virus, perhaps disguised as something else.

We were there for a wedding. My cousins were there, people I remember best as childhood playmates. People I don’t really know any more.

I was standing with my dad’s youngest cousin, a sweet woman now in her eighties, and there was something profound I understood as the two of us watched our children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren.

It was something about time, and how quickly it passes. How the happiest and the most devastating events both end up the same way, left behind on a linear timeline that stretches behind us forever.

“It’s so important that you notice things,” my cousin said. “Because no matter what they are, they’re so fleeting.”

As she spoke, that shabby hotel was a lovely place, and our children, all of them, were glorious, beautiful people in a perfect moment.

I knew she was right.