running on the spot
Entry posted by swilkinson
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From time to time I have nightmares. If they are bad nightmares, the sort that starts a re-run as soon as you close your eyes I get out of bed. Either I read for a while or come here to the computer. I did that twice last week. 4am and I am awake, in front of my computer, wrapped in my comfortable dressing gown. Hugging myself to send the demons in the bad dream back to where they came from.
Every time life gets too busy, and I get too stressed I start on the nightmares again. There is the one about running on the spot, in the dream I am trying to catch something or someone who has just gone out of sight around the corner. You've probably had this one too. So I try to increase my speed. I either wake in a panic or feel as if my chest has hit a brick wall. Then there is the black terror nightmare, I am in the dark, just outside my vision is something even darker, moving slower ahead of me. I am trying to hang back, suddenly it is facing me, something so terrible I can't even breathe. I wake up from that one too.
What do dreams tell us? I often wonder if it is worth finding someone to interpret dreams but know from biblical stories that that is not always wise. So mostly I just trust that things will get better and the nightmares will vanish again. Oh sometimes to drift into sweet sleep like a child does, just close your eyes and go to sleep. Go to sleep without running through the lists of what I did and did not do today. Like Lucy I wonder why I feel guilty. As if I have some control over what life brings day-by-day.
The past few days I have had some contacts that have irritated me. The sort of friend who rings and says they have not seen me, sounding as if it is my fault and I am hiding somewhere. I explain that Ray has been sick and so I have had to stay close to home. The non-understanding caller then says: "But he's better isn't he? You should be able to do ### now surely?" Gosh it is nice to be wanted isn't it? And in the past I would have moved heaven and hell to help out but it just isn't practical to try and fit anything else into a life that needs more time out not less.
Next week is the one the church calls Holy Week, the lead up to Easter. It starts with Palm Sunday and in most churches there will be palm fronds or palm crosses handed out. Some churches will re-enact the ride Jesus made into Jerusalem on a donkey, "humble, and riding on a donkey" an old song we sang as kids had that in it. Then there is a week of prayer, then Good Friday, Easter Saturday and glorious Easter Sunday. They throw in Easter Monday here so the workers get a four days weekend if they have a Monday to Friday job. The shift workers, the casuals and us caregivers just go on working our usual hours.
I am not ready for Easter this year. I have not been reading my Bible and reflecting, I have been looking after Ray, visiting him in hospital and now he is home again, looking after him here. I do not have time to sit and pray for the world and all its sins. I am too busy. I hope though that others are spending their time in prayer. The world sure could do with it. The news is full of the reckless,selfish acts of mankind. The deaths caused by hit-and-run drivers, senseless crimes against old folk, the humble surely do suffer at the hands of the powerful and the strong no longer protect the weak. Guess that much hasn't changed a lot in 2000 years. We still need someone to come and straighten us out, give us some new rules to live by. As for someone dying for our sins - would anyone notice?
I am like the figure I see in my nightmare, the one who runs on the spot. I have a garden full of litter, my green topped garden litter bin goes out tonight, it is raining. I can't go out and sweep it all up. I have so many small insignificant jobs to do, ironing, mending, tidying away. The contents of the store room is still on the back verandah, under the patio roof. There is nowhere to put it and I will have to wait until I can think of small moves that will open up a corner here and a drawer there so it all fits back in. Sure I could throw some of my stuff out and when I need it? What do I do then?
The shower room is on hold as the workers are mostly involved in a trip to Malaysia to a convention. So nothing now until they come home again. The work is two thirds done. But now we wait. I'm going to wait sitting down, not running on the spot.
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