“We just save all our good dreaming for the daytime,” she said, as I sat with my mother at the breakfast table, each of us offering up the nightmare from the wee hours before. We’d laugh through the fog of the ones we were still in, eat our breakfast, wash our faces, and begin again. 

Smarter people have tried to figure out why we dream what we do. It’s funny, even when you know they aren’t real, when you know they didn’t happen, the feeling from it can remain for minutes, for hours, some even longer. Oh, feelings… 

So when I have a good one, a good dream at night, well, that is something to be celebrated! And it happened two nights ago. It was only a brief visit to my grandma’s house, walking in with all of my cousins. Grandma Elsie said she had a surprise for us. Past the kitchen, round the corner, into the living room. A sea of Christmas presents. Presents of red and green piled higher than the tree that still tried to blink its way through. Higher than the television that played Rudolph at full volume. Higher than the smell of tobacco from Grandpa’s pipe that lingered in a Christmas color haze on the ceiling. Higher than my heart had ever reached in this farm house of theirs. 

It’s probably too easy to interpret as all the gifts they gave us. But that’s what I’m going to do. 

Still high from the night, we got coffee and went antique shopping in Arizona. My Valentine bought a beautiful necklace for me. Of course I had dressed for the occasion, (the occasion of a new day) — my mother had taught me that too. The woman behind the counter helped me with the clasp and told me I looked like a model. There I was, with the one I love, in mid compliment, high again. It’s true, what my mother said. Even after the best night-dream I’ve had in a very long time, the life I am living is even better. 

Happy Valentine’s Day!