Just One Sentence

It seems I am trying to remember how to write and publish a blog post, much like how I was trying to remember how to write and MLA-format the paper I turned in last week for school. This one's been rolling around upstairs in the cave for about a week. I have finals this week, so if I don't write it now, I never will.

I dream of my dad so rarely that when I do, I have a hard time (thankfully) forgetting them, these deep expressions of my subconscious. However, the older I get, the more I burst brain cells raising children, the more I devote my mind to higher education, I forget. This last one, though, I hope with all that I am, I don't.

I was in the backseat of a car on a road trip with my dad and a friend. Dad was driving. They were getting to know each other up front as I relaxed into the corner where the back seat and the car door meet, chin in hand, watching thousands of yellow marks on the highway become something of the past. I studied my dad's hairline, the back of his neck, his collar, his hands on the steering wheel. I remember the ease of how he spoke, laughed and conversed. I listened to and felt his laugh. The car felt warm.

As we drove they made small talk in the front seat. I wasn't included, but I didn't mind. We were on our way somewhere and I didn't know where it was we were going, but it wasn't important in the dream.

Later on, just the two of us then, Dad said something to me that I am certain, just as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow, I will never forget. If You thought I'd share it here, well then, Y'all don't know me at all.

What I will say is that those six words he said are incredibly powerful and meaningful to me. Thinking back, I don't believe I've ever had a dream where he's really ever said anything to me. He's always just been there, around, near, his presence an impossibility to escape. And the other reason, so much like the first breath of air taken after having been under water for too long, actually woke me out of my sleep ...

He gave me advice. It was one sentence.

These words, I think I grasp their practicality, but because this was a first to have him speak directly to me, I've been trying to, like, overlay it onto several situations in my life to see to which one it might apply, or best fit. I may never stop doing that.

The dream ended at a party of an acquaintance of mine here in town. Her kitchen had two dishwashers that faced each other which was strange. What was even stranger, though, was that the room came to a point at the far end of the kitchen. It was tight at that end and if you opened one dishwasher, it would bump the other making this extravagance of having two dishwashers seem pointless. I don't know, it was very Alice in Wonderland-ish.

At the party, we were hanging out with friends, most of whom I didn't know very well, but I remember thinking their ranch/sci-fi-inspired house was cool. And that was it. After that, I woke up.