Sleep "is a rehearsal for the final laying down of arms, of course, when you trust yourself to the same unseen benevolence to see you through the dark and to wake you when the time comes --- with new hope, new strength --- into the return again of light" (Frederick Buechner).
Sarah will be the first to tell you when I first fall asleep I'm "deader than a door nail."
Three little girls watching Netflix, the Tybee Island Weather Warning System or the constant droning of televangelists asking for money can't wake me.
I am gone from this world to ... I don't know ... but even Sarah's sweet caresses and kisses can't raise me from the dead state I'm in but ... eventually ... I come back.
Sometimes I watch people actually die and it really is a lot like falling asleep ... it just takes a lot longer because this time there's no waking up so ... nobody's in a hurry.
Last night, snuggled tightly with my wife, I relentlessly dreamed, one after another as though waves in the Ocean hitting the shore.
They were full of people long deceased and still living, relics of the past and places I've never been, things I've actually done and others I'd never consider, impossible circumstances and improbable realities.
Some were in black and white while others were in color.
Some were silent dreams as if words are unnecessary while one clearly contained the voice of my Grandmother singing "Precious Memories" holding me in her arms.
At one point, I have to pee and don't want to get up ... I'm really enjoying these dreams ... but my body calls me back to the demands of the living so I unwrap myself from Sarah and stumble to the bathroom.
"Well if sleeping is the rehearsal for dying," I think standing their hoping my aim is true, "I wonder if dreams are previews of coming attractions?"
What comes next will not be confined by current realities but will be an inclusive something or another where we easily move between the living and the dead, renew things we've loved and embrace new loves we've never tried with improbable people in impossible ways.
Stumbling back to bed, it strikes me how much I like these thoughts.
Re-entwining myself with Sarah, I try to fall back asleep as soon as I can, ready to dream and to practice for the things that are coming.
