This is not a movie, just a screen capture of the opening shot of a family video…and the beauty of our children just slays me.

While I was in Sanibel last May, I received a nudge. Not sure what else to call it. I’d taken along an old journal, and in re-reading what I’d written in mid-April of the prior year (2018), I found this: I’d recorded a short, vivid dream, in which I learned that my mom had purchased $1000 worth of “pool privileges” for our neighborhood swim club, in order to spend “a lot of time there” with my dad. Soon after, (this is still the dream) a coupon book – for monthly payments to the pool – was tossed on our front sidewalk, for me to hand to my mom. I then saw my folks getting all set up at the pool; my mom had even brought a mini-fridge, stocked with snacks and various beverages (this is so her!). But….my parents live an hour away and are vigorously independent, determined to age-in-place, so this didn’t fit reality. What did it mean? In the dream, I had felt rather conflicted, very protective of “my” pool, feeling it as sanctuary…not sure I wanted to share. When I woke up, I wrote it all down, as I’ve learned to do (otherwise PFFFT: gone) but wasn’t sure if that was just mental cleaning-out, a little pile of nonsense.

As I sat in Sanibel in 2019 and read about that dream from 2018, I suddenly made the connection between the dream and what had happened in real life in the interim.

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