[lit-ideas] Re: Sage in a dream
- From: Ursula Stange <ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 13:31:25 -0500
Beautiful, Lawrence. I hope you send this to friends and family who also knew
Sage.
Ursula
On 2013-11-06, at 12:06 PM, "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>
> Last night I dreamt I was walking through a strange neighborhood,
> through back alleys and streets. At last I got to where I was going,
> someone’s house that Susan and I were visiting. Susan showed up a few
> minutes later by car and I asked, “Where’s Sage?”
> She said, “I thought she was with you,” and began talking to the
> people we had come to visit, but I was worried. I kept looking out the door
> to see if she was out there. Finally, I announced, but no one seemed to pay
> attention, “I’m going to find her.”
> I began walking back the way I had come. I didn’t walk too
> terribly far before I entered a park. It wasn’t a huge park but one like
> they have in San Jacinto, an obligation park that builders must create before
> they are given permission to build. This one was surrounded by hedges and as
> I entered I could see a number of dogs. Additional dogs popped up from
> behind hedges to look at me. A huge shaggy reddish dog was the most
> formidable. He was as large as an Irish Wolfhound and didn’t seem friendly,
> but I had no time to waste. I kept walking until I reached the edge of the
> park and standing outside its boundaries was Sage. Her head was down. She’d
> come a long way and been through some brush which was clinging to her coat.
> I was overjoyed and rushed out of the park as she sat there and hugged her.
> And then I woke. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that
> Sage had died two months ago. Her being dead and the memory of the dream
> were together for a moment. I didn’t long to have her back because that
> would have meant a restoration of her suffering. By the time she gave way to
> her pain it was late Saturday and the vet was closed. The vet was closed
> Sunday as well and also the next day which was a holiday. I would have
> spared Sage that if I could, but the world and nature were inflexible. And
> then it seemed that instead of a longing to have her restored to me, I was
> being given in my dream an opportunity to say good bye to her.
> Later I thought of Dante and wondered about the significance of
> Sage being outside the park. She and I had never been to a dog-park. We
> hiked mostly at the river and if we went for walks it was at night when we
> rarely encountered anyone, and if we encountered a stray dog that seemed
> aggressive toward Sage, she discourage its intentions, whatever they were.
> Was the park a purgatorio or a paradiso? If either, Sage was
> outside.
> One day years ago at the river, Sage chased after a rabbit and
> disappeared. After a bit I turned around to look for her but couldn’t find
> her. I called as I searched. I was sure that by that time she had given up
> chasing the rabbit and was looking for Ginger and me, but we couldn’t find
> each other. At last I returned to the Jeep to see if she would eventually
> come back there, and after about 20 minutes she did: very hot and with tongue
> lolling. That happened one more time a few weeks later. But after that I
> would wait at the spot where Sage left us. I wouldn’t continue on until I
> could see her again, and she could see me.
> If my losing Sage in the dream had really happened then I would
> have taken her back to the house we were visiting and put her in the back
> seat of Susan’s car to wait for us. But the dream ended there. Not only did
> it end but it seemed the fitting end. I didn’t wake up thinking that Sage
> should have followed me anyplace else. We were together again for just that
> one last time, and then I woke.
>
> Lawrence
>
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