Poetry Friday WORD for tomorrow, plus the Feverish Dream

The lovely and talented Maggie will offer up the Poetry Friday Word for this week...go see her! Maggie is a wonderful wordsmith and dreamer...my favorite combo! Plus she's cooking some stuff that's making me drool....

I'm a busy bee/beaver this week, spending time at the kids' school and trying to get my work projects done as I'm ON VACATION starting tomorrow and going through the New Year. How dare I? The guys are all a bit jealous and startled, like, Ooh, what will we DO without Mona? Well y'know what you'll DO? You'll muddle through, so don't go guilting me about taking a vacation, alright pal? Pffft.

Which reminds me...my posting for the next few weeks will be spotty, as I plan to collapse under the weight of Holiday Bliss and it'll take me a while to de-coma-tize. You may find me lurking on your posts. Because I like to watch.

I had a terrifying dream last night. I can only tell it in a jumble. A co-worker had to go to some Central American country for a baseball game...one he was watching, not playing...some Central American country with a coup, and civil war. Co-worker asked me to go along. I expressed my doubts but he said, No, they're NICE to tourists. So we went...Co-worker, a couple we knew (the wife was the host of Top Chef) and their 1-month old baby. We went to the baseball game, and the place looked very American. We went to some bars, and they were also very American. We got back to the embassy, I went outside to take out the trash (apparently I'm tidy even in my dreams), and I heard...oh...the most terrifying sound I could ever dream up. In the distance, outside the embassy, I heard torture. Screams, the sound of ripping, struggle, voices shouting and being hushed, and above it all, a woman's voice, a wail, rising and falling, in that way a woman would wail if she'd just lost the most precious things in her life. I ran inside, and my face told everyone what they needed to know. In that moment, I freaked out. All I could think about was that I'd never see my family again. I nearly threw up. For real. Then Co-worker said, it's alright, we just called for the helicopter, they'll be here in a minute to take us back to the States. Next thing I knew, we were home. At an American baseball game. At an American bar. And it felt better. But I still wasn't sure I was safe. I still felt like any minute, someone would break down the door. (I could feel my bed, I could hear my husband breathing, and my feet rubbing the cool part of the sheets.) I was freaked out, still, even though I was 'safe', and then...my alarm went off, and after I banged the top down, I sat on the edge of the bed, naked, trembling, trying to figure out if I was safe. I only just now got some sense of the dream. Then I thought about dear Lucia, and her travels, and hoped she was safe. (Are you?) I thought about checking MSNBC to see if I dreamed a real-life thing. I wanted to tell Co-worker about my dream, but knew I couldn't without holding back some kind of screaming urgent thing in my throat. So. So I'm telling you. Because, oh man, sometimes in the daylight, when I've finally got my head back, I feel so lucky.