OH! WHAT A NIGHT!

Oh! What a night! I had a most fabulous dream! It was a great reunion of the quick and the dead. It was at the old place on Tract 33, CL. It was Mom's big yard and small white house. Wallis' house was there, too. but it was not blue, it was orchid. The street had no tar, it was a simple dirt road. Across the road was Cliff Beaulieau's old house... now so long gone. I had wrap-around vision and could see everything at the same time. I could look in all directions without turning my head! So I saw all the old houses as they had stood when I was very young. My mother and maternal grandmother were putting out the food. The small round table grew bigger and bigger until it was large enough to contain the huge feast. Chairs grew up out of the grass. Mom was young and slender, she wore no shoes and a pretty green dress. My grandmother was young, too. She wore a blue dress and a long white apron. Then I heard a drum and saw a great parade of dancers from many generations in period regalia. The most contemporary were first. They were coming along the dust choked road. I can still hear their quiet voices and gentle laughter. .. smell the dust under their feet. I hurried into the lilac house and got a camera. It was not digital. I stuck several rolls of film into my pocket and ran outside. Soon I had wonderful pictures of all my relatives. They were all so beautiful and happy. Suddenly the camera burst open in my hands and film came coiling out. There was more film than a camera can hold and it continued rolling out until I stood in the middle of a great mound of ruined film. I was grief-stricken at such loss. Against my will I began to wake up. So with my eyes shut tight and hands still clutching the camera... I was forced to leave the gathering. No one turned to say goodbye. So I found myself suddenly alone. Only then did I realize there had been no children or animals at the reunion. No one was old, broken, wounded, disabled or diseased. We were all at the moment of perfection, as we are meant to be. Even perfect in spirit. Now this hopelessly flawed creature that I am is harder to bear. Oh! What a night!
But Mary O has lovely words for me. She writes, "All summer I wandered the fields that were thickening every morning."
Klinkenborg wrote of visiting his parent's CA 'ranch'. He saw it as a testament of his father's character. Of his own home in MT he said, "I hope the mess I make speaks as well of me someday."