In part I wish I had woken up earlier, as I now don’t know if I have time to talk about my dreams, which were intense and telling. Another part tells me that I may not have had the dream if I had gotten up, as I can’t remember if it was a snooze button thing. If it was, it was worth the rush now, as I remember what happened, and I feel that it will stick with me even past the time that I remember why. Dreams are awesome like that.

I’m putting on music now.

I dreamed I was in a place, I now see it as Jamaica, but it was actually outside of Boston – North of Arlington, specifically. I was at the beach with the boy. I forgot to open a quote.

Fortunately that’s not the important part of the dream.

I was riding a moped, or perhaps a small motorcycle, on a rough road in a tropical location. No helmet. I was with my Father, but we both had our own bikes and were riding side by side, talking.

I don’t remember there being excessive wind, there were none of the realistic feelings of riding a motorcycle. The surrounding foliage was lush and a vivid green that only appears to the eyes at a certain pressure, in places where the barometric pressure indicates that rain could come at any moment, and frequently does, hanging in the air. That telltale green, that foggy smell.

Small grayish green things were flying through the air, we encountered a cloud of them. My Father was briefly₁ annoyed, but in his characteristic way, pretended to be fine with them, not letting them ruin his day₂.

I reached out and caught one, it was the size of a large cockroach. On closer inspection, it was a tiny cockatiel, yellow face and orange cheeks and all. It’s beak opened and head feathers went up, as if pleased. I showed it to my Father, who smiled the rare smile of nostalgia that I only see occasionally from him, very very rarely. The bird, unaccustomed to the speed, sat on my shoulder as we rode on.

1. The typo I had here translated as firefly, which is cool. It is the season of fireflies. I have to call my Mother tonight. 2. This is the most wonderful characteristic of my Father, and only as he grows older do I recognize that as an effort from him. It appears it’s getting harder. I should call him and tell him that I appreciate the effort, I should get back to work writing his eulogy as it appears I’ll eventually need it.

I don’t know if this is truly a blank spot in the dream, but I’m skipping to the good part.

I was in an office, a stereotypical cubicle farm₁. There were some attempts at plants for decorations. One lady was seated in her particle board partition, another standing in front of me, back to a strangely placed corner wall. Both were dressed in that way that Islanders are, the height of conservative fashion from at least a decade or two ago, wearing Pantone’s pallet from those years₂. Not the throwback caricature of the time that we see in Forever 21, but what people were actually doing. It’s a time capsule, or more like one of those radio signals that we send out into space, knowing that it’s going to take a millennia for whoever finds our satellite to find out who won that 1976 Dodgers game that we loaded in.

Was it a real estate office? That was my feeling. However, the conversation was more that of a travel agent.

I was telling them the story of where I have lived. I told them about my parents, I told them about the fire, I told them all of it, and I could see they were surprised.

The seated lady asked me, her face a genuine look of concern and so many other things, letting me know that I was close to tears –

“So, where are you going for your 20th anniversary?”

I explained that there was no way in hell I was getting back with my ex. The lady against the wall was also involved in the conversation.

“No, just you. You can still go somewhere. Where do you want to go?”

“Do you want to go home? I bet you want to go home.”

And we all let out a clenched tooth sigh, looking out into the distance, as they realized that I had no idea where that was and the question made me unable to control my facial expression and conceal my utter despair.

1. The boy showed me pictures of his office this weekend, it looks like hell. Utterly emotionless. 2. Black blazers with a not glaringly vibrant magenta blouse – I will verify that year.

This year will be, would have been, my 20th anniversary. And I have sold our house, and my parents have sold their house, and there is no home.

I’m going back to Jamaica.