It is a Saturday morning during wintertime. At about 7:00 a.m. I wake up to go to the bathroom and then to the kitchen for a snack. As usual the cats are milling about, clamoring to be fed in their gentle way. We are temporarily out of dry kibble, since I hadn’t had time the previous night to refill their dry-food storage canisters upstairs from the long-term supply of bagged food in the basement. (If we keep bags upstairs, one or another of the cats will eventually claw them open.) I had skipped the chore to get to bed at an hour at least approximating something halfway decent.
After the cats have been fed some unexpected and always-appreciated canned food, instead of the usual kibble at this hour, I head back to bed for more sleep. It’s the weekend and I want to catch up. With enough sleep, I am myself, and I’ve been overworked and a little short of it this week.
I drift back to sleep. Then at some point I am in a dream. I am in a small town the size of, say, a small university town. Bigger than the town of less than 10,000 I grew up in, but still small compared to the cities where most of us live these days. (Having grown up in a small town, I prefer them to cities.) In the dream, it’s a gray day — the type of day I generally like, except it’s somewhat cold, and some snow and slush are on the streets. I find myself in the downtown area of this small town, with ice skates on. I begin skating over the pavement, and even though the snow and ice are melting away, I can still skate over the last remaining bits, more or less.
