On Dreams

Not for the first time, I dreamt last night of my grandmother’s garden. I drifted through her house, opened the Dutch doors and stepped out into one of her many lush tropical gardens. I was checking pumpkins for ripeness. Even sleep cannot break my connection to the natural world: the advent of fall means I have been engaged in this particular pursuit during my waking hours, too.

Surveying the garden for its bounty makes me feel infinitely connected to her. My earliest memories are shaped by my remembrance of running to her bedroom at dawn, looking sleepily out her louvered windows and seeing her tending her garden. Watering the flowers, weeding the beds. I had no idea as a child how deeply important this ritual behavior would become to me. If there is prayer, I find it among the flowers. If there is peace, it’s in the ginger step of my feet on the ground and my hands in the soil and the swish of my housedress (another ode to the women in my life)as I float between the rows.