White Dresses
I dreamed I was driving my old station wagon through the streets of San Angelo, where I attended university for a while.
I was wearing a white long linen dress, hand embroidered with flowers and dark ropy patterns, that I made several years ago. The dress was important for some reason.
Many important things happened to me when I was in San Angelo. Maybe the dream was to remind me of this.
I met a man and fell in love with him when I lived in San Angelo. He died a few years later and I have never forgiven him for this. I never told him how I felt, and I have never forgiven myself for this. It is all worms now, so it probably no longer matters.
The last time I saw him alive, I was wearing this dress. I loved this dress because it emphasized the swell of my breasts and the flare of my hips. It drew attention to the parts of me I like touched. His eyes and hands followed the lines of the dress and of my body that night. He later called me and told me he had a very important question regarding my future, and he would ask me when we met next.
It was enough, because there was always tomorrow. But tomorrow didn't come, not for him, at any rate. So my tomorrows were diminished, and I never knew what the question was.
Loss is selfishness. I wallowed in my loss for a few years. I still wonder what the question was. I haven't worn that dress since that night, until I dreamed myself in this dress.
I was driving out to and through the military base at which he was stationed, Goodfellow AFB, I drove through the university where *I* was stationed, Angelo State University, and through the town and the outlying farms. It's all different than when I was there. Myriad small changes that made the city almost unrecognizable, some big changes that didn't seem as dramatic.
I drove by the lake where I seduced a man named Robert in the forwardness of my youth, months before I knew that Ed Moon mattered so very much to me. I smiled at that uncomplicated joyous memory. That was when I learned that the steering wheels on VW Bugs (The old ones, not the new cheesy knock-offs) were detachable, and that the sound nutria make at sunset is a cross between a warble and a croak.
I've never been fearless with my heart. There were, however, days, once, when risks were acceptable. Maybe the dress was supposed to remind me of burgeoning possibilities, of coveting someone's regard, of eyes like schizophrenic stormy skies, dark with the things men think when they want a woman.
I think I'll try to find where I've stored that dress. Maybe I'll wear it. Maybe I'll just look at it. Maybe I'll cry on it like I did when I got the call that Ed had been killed in a lorry accident. Maybe it won't mean anything, to sit there and look at that dress. That would be the scary thing, I think. That I felt nothing. Maybe I won't try to find that dress.
I dreamed I was driving my old station wagon through the streets of San Angelo, where I attended university for a while.
I was wearing a white long linen dress, hand embroidered with flowers and dark ropy patterns, that I made several years ago. The dress was important for some reason.
Many important things happened to me when I was in San Angelo. Maybe the dream was to remind me of this.
I met a man and fell in love with him when I lived in San Angelo. He died a few years later and I have never forgiven him for this. I never told him how I felt, and I have never forgiven myself for this. It is all worms now, so it probably no longer matters.
The last time I saw him alive, I was wearing this dress. I loved this dress because it emphasized the swell of my breasts and the flare of my hips. It drew attention to the parts of me I like touched. His eyes and hands followed the lines of the dress and of my body that night. He later called me and told me he had a very important question regarding my future, and he would ask me when we met next.
It was enough, because there was always tomorrow. But tomorrow didn't come, not for him, at any rate. So my tomorrows were diminished, and I never knew what the question was.
Loss is selfishness. I wallowed in my loss for a few years. I still wonder what the question was. I haven't worn that dress since that night, until I dreamed myself in this dress.
I was driving out to and through the military base at which he was stationed, Goodfellow AFB, I drove through the university where *I* was stationed, Angelo State University, and through the town and the outlying farms. It's all different than when I was there. Myriad small changes that made the city almost unrecognizable, some big changes that didn't seem as dramatic.
I drove by the lake where I seduced a man named Robert in the forwardness of my youth, months before I knew that Ed Moon mattered so very much to me. I smiled at that uncomplicated joyous memory. That was when I learned that the steering wheels on VW Bugs (The old ones, not the new cheesy knock-offs) were detachable, and that the sound nutria make at sunset is a cross between a warble and a croak.
I've never been fearless with my heart. There were, however, days, once, when risks were acceptable. Maybe the dress was supposed to remind me of burgeoning possibilities, of coveting someone's regard, of eyes like schizophrenic stormy skies, dark with the things men think when they want a woman.
I think I'll try to find where I've stored that dress. Maybe I'll wear it. Maybe I'll just look at it. Maybe I'll cry on it like I did when I got the call that Ed had been killed in a lorry accident. Maybe it won't mean anything, to sit there and look at that dress. That would be the scary thing, I think. That I felt nothing. Maybe I won't try to find that dress.