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.

Thirty-five years ago I read The Name of the Rose, at that time the book was a literary sensation and Umberto Eco's name joined the pantheon of writers of renown and distinction. Much later I read The Island of the Day Before and thrilled to its exotic appeal, his exquisite use of language and intrigue and mysterious aura in yet another complex plot. I've had Foucault's Pendulum in our personal library for many years and meant to read it, but never did. Now I am. But I was so tired last night, the night before and the night before that I barely budged through the first few pages before nodding off.

Last night I dreamed I was at a clinic and a nurse was administering an inoculation. Oops, she said, the needle broke. And the end of it disappeared through my epidermis and just kept being absorbed. The nurse attempted without success to grasp the slowly disappearing needle. Tweezers, I gasped, and looked about, opening one of the drawers of our bathroom vanity and offering her the tweezers. No use, I glanced at my upper arm, and it looked smooth, no sight of a broken needle, but there was the feeling of pain, not much, but there.

Actually I was not very upset. The nurse seemed somewhat amused by the incident. Assuring me it was nothing. It happened all the time, she said. Other health professionals also in the room seemed absorbed in other things; no one was interested in that little drama. But I was worried about what my husband might say or feel when I informed him, once I joined him in the adjoining waiting room. And then I woke up.

To an overcast day, the last of the warm Indian Summer days that a high pressure system kept hovering over us to our unalloyed delight. The temperature hovered at 17C all day, but it seemed much warmer because it was so humid. It had rained during the night and the outdoors was steeped deep in moisture. We had decided, since my husband had a few early afternoon appointments to get out earlier with Jackie and Jillie. So we could enjoy a leisurely walk and not be concerned about getting back in time for him to make off for his appointments.

We all wore rainjackets. It's always much cooler in the forest than elsewhere and we were comfortable with the rainjackets, uncertain whether the rain would pick up or just continue lazily in its light pattern of almost mistlike dimensions. It felt good, truth be told, the cool misty rain blown by the wind against our faces. And it certainly didn't bother Jackie and Jillie.

A dusky atmosphere prevailed in the ravine as we traipsed through the forest trails. There was no pick-up in the rain, so we just continued swerving off one trail to link up with another, a long, restful and refreshing circuit. Squirrels were out in full numbers, still collecting cones. One grey squirrel in particular seemed fascinated by our presence, interested in what we were doing, watching us. Jackie and Jillie failed to notice the fluffy little creature, he kept so still, halfway up a tree trunk. Their eyes are usually fixed to the ground, or fixated on what's before them.

Later in the afternoon I was looking through albums of old photographs, long pre-dating digital cameras. Many of the photographs, decades old, recalling adventures we once enjoyed abroad, had actually faded. The coloured ones, not so much the older black-and-white photos. 

By then, most of the clouds had cleared out, and the sun appeared. And just as I was about to have a look at what was happening on line, just as late afternoon dusk began to settle in, my eye was caught by the spectacle of the setting sun turning streaks of grey clouds into an intense pastel pink, I stepped out onto the deck to snap a few photographs. When I stepped back into the house everything became dark. In the immediate area the electricity went off. 

The dinner I'd meant to prepare wouldn't grace our evening table set for dinner, after all. We ended up eating 'light' as it were. Some fresh vegetables, a canned-salmon salad -- my husband's specialty, which he always claims I enjoy because for a change someone else is preparing food -- and tea. My husband boiled water in the dark, on the deck, using a side burner of our natural gas-powered barbecue. Likely the very last time it will be put to use this year. And we thought we had reached that point two months back....