I had the strangest of dreams last night. When I awoke I remembered it. I often have no trouble recalling dreams, they're vivid in my mind, not the least bit fuzzy or difficult to recall. It was harmless in a sense, just a little upsetting, I suppose. And I don't really know why I dreamed it, though there must be an underlying sense of unease to make my sleeping mind turn to a scenario like that.

We were shopping at a supermarket and Irving had the shopping cart and as often we do, we separated and I wondered where he'd gone to, but wound my way around the shelving in the store. I was at the eggs, picking up a carton only to discover it had one egg in it. I left it, hefted another and it too held only one egg. The egg case in fact was in disarray. Empty cartons lying haphazardly everywhere.

Moving on, I encountered bare shelves, and an absolute dearth of fresh fruits and vegetables. Any that were there were clearly picked over, and represented the absolute rejected dregs of what once must have been produce piled high, fresh, colourful and begging to be taken home. Not these. 

At one counter I saw a pathetic bunch of grapes and so did someone else. I shuffled them closer to where I stood, effectively taking possession, but had nothing to put them in so I reached for one of those transparent plastic bags, wondering if shoppers were going to resort to ugly confrontations in the face of  a peculiar food shortage. I felt unease, no panic, just wondered where my husband had gotten himself to.

And then I woke up. This is not a pandemic nightmare. This is a dream I've had in various forms on previous occasions, long before the advent of COVID-19. It obviously bespeaks a concern over acquiring the necessity of life itself, food, but where it comes from is beyond me. We've been poor in our lives, but always managed somehow to be able to put fresh whole food on the table for our family. 

If I were really obsessed and it became a pathology, I suppose we could always grow food in a summer garden. When our children were really young we had a peach tree in our first modest backyard which I would harvest, we'd have the fruit fresh, I made jam, I produced preserved fruit. We would often go on hiking trips up the hillsides of Gatineau Park with our children to pick raspberries and blueberries and blackberries. Back then we would eat the fresh fruit and make jam of the excess.

We're no longer 'poor'; anything but; more than financially secure and comfortable. Is this an ancient inherited memory of the species? For the longest time, I had nightmares of being lost in the midst of busy city streets thinking I saw familiar signposts and looking for streets that were really familiar that would lead me to home. A dreadful yearning would grip me. I had this dream repeatedly, and no longer do.

Irving had similar dreams of being somewhere and anxiously wanting to return home. To me. His nightmares were born of his travelling days when he'd be away from home, living out of hotel rooms. Trips to distant parts of Canada, the U.S., Mexico, China, Japan, Britain, Ireland. Perhaps thrilling at first when initially experienced, but not so much so when the trips were frequent and long and he missed his family. He dreamed of missing flights, of being ill aboard flights, of roaming strange places, though both he and I readily adapted in real life to living away from 'home'. When we were together.

We're secure now. All I ever wanted from the time we were young together as children was for us to be together, all the time. We are and have been since forever. Today, like all other days of our now-routine lives, we were out in the forest with Jackie and Jillie on a  hot summer day; humid and sunny. What more perfect place to be? From the time we were children together we sought out green spaces to share our time in. Two little dogs think similarly; by the time midday approaches they're anxious to be off on a hike.

Today the Himalayan orchids that have proliferated thickly at the entrance to the forest have begun blooming. They'll eventually present a sea of pink nodding orchid heads. Like the colonies of Black-eyed Susans we see in a glory of gold under the summer sun close to where the orchids have established themselves.

From the wildflowers in the forest, to the cultivated flowers in our garden, we're confronted with the evanescent, transitory beauty of nature through the seasons. Nature hard at work, generously allowing us the conceited impression that our ministrations in the garden make any kind of an impact on her vast multitudes of ornamental vegetation.