I felt like I had just
gotten out of the car. It was late in the afternoon of a fall day. I seemed to
park in a parking lot, for maybe a business. There were leaves all in the
parking lot. There were other cars and maybe some people there, but I wasn’t
feeling comfortable especially with the people, yet I could not put a finger on
as to why or exactly where they were in the parking lot. Or were they over by
the business or in their cars. I cannot remember why I stopped.
Again the parking lot was
full of leaves, all drenched in bland fall colors, not the bright oranges and
yellows you want to see, more of a dull orange or dull light brown. I looked up
and the trees were the same way. The canopy of trees were thick so not much
sunlight was getting through. All round the parking lot were trees blocking any
direct sunlight from reaching the ground. I looked over and wasn’t sure if the one
story small building I thought I had seen still existed. Did I see one?
I continued to look
around. Off to one side of the parking lot was a small ravine and then on the
other side was a hill that went up. Due to the trees I could not see how far
the hill went up. I thought about walking over to the ravine to get a better
look, yet still just stood still looking at the ravine. It had me fixated for a
moment, but for how long I cannot remember or was it I could not tell.
I turned back towards
where I thought the business had been, yet there was something there, but now
it appeared to be more of a mound up against the other side of the parking lot
from the ravine. There were trees standing over it and a hill went up behind it
with trees going up the side of the hill so you could not see how far it went
up.
Not only was the ground
of the parking lot covered with leaves, so was the ground all around the
parking lot. I turned around and around looking for the entrance to the parking
lot or the road that led me here.
The leaves went up the
sides of the hills on either side of the parking lot. I decided I wanted to
leave so I reached into my pocket for my keys. I couldn’t find my keys. I tried
walking around and now it seemed there were less cars and the cars that were
there were in states of disrepair and missing doors or other body parts. I
tried to look for the people I had thought I had seen earlier or had I just felt
their presence.
It still seemed like it was
late in the day. I could look up through the trees and saw blue sky and some
light filtering through all the trees. It had that look like the sunlight wasn’t
directly overhead. I could not figure which direction the sun was though. I
tried to figure out how long I had been there. It couldn’t have been long since
it was still light. I was starting to worry about it getting dark so I began
hunting around where I was standing for my keys. I then realized I could not
find my car much less my keys.
What happened to my car?
I looked around the parking lot and now I wasn’t sure it was a parking lot.
Were there any cars still there? There were leaves everywhere and some seemed
stacked high like maybe they were covering something. I looked up. It was still
daylight and it appeared it hadn’t changed. Small amounts of sunlight filtering
through the trees and glimpses of blue sky through all the leaves. I started to
try and figure out why the trees had all their and yet there were so many on
the ground. That thought did not hold long. I just kept standing in the same
spot trying to look for something to orientate myself. I started thinking I
should try to climb one of the hills to get a better sense of my surroundings.
For some reason I still stood there. I do not want to say I was unable to work
forward or I wasn’t motivated to walk towards the ravine or any of the hills. It
seemed everywhere I looked around there were hills all covered with trees so it
was hard to determine how high was each hill. All the trees had the same color
leaves that dull orange or light brown. It even appeared they were all the same
size, yet I could not tell if all the trees were the same type. Some were
taller than others, but that did not determine if the species of the trees were
all the same. Now that I had been there awhile, I noticed everywhere around me
was a forest, not too thick, but seeing off into the distance was hard or up
the hills all I could see were trees.
And as time went on I
kept worrying about what I was going to do when evening then night came. I
looked up and the sky had the same amount of light it had when I first arrived.
I didn’t panic about night coming yet, but it was a concern. I tried to
determine how much light was left in the day. I could not tell. I knew it was
still daylight, yet seeing the sky clearly was difficult through all the
foliage on the trees overhead. I couldn’t tell if there was a cloud in the sky
or not. The light seemed the exact same as when I arrived.
Nothing was stopping me
from going anywhere, yet nothing was inspiring me to trek through the forest to
climb one of the hills. I wanted to walk, yet I just stood there constantly turning
to face one direction then another. The idea that I was once in a parking lot
was there, but it had long since disappeared with the building, my car, my
keys, the other cars and the people I had thought were there when I first
arrived. Now there was just me, some flat ground that use to be the parking lot,
some mounds of ground I presumed, leaves that had collected into mounds, the
trees and then the hills going up to who knows where. All around me was this
dull color, nothing that stood out, just this constant foliage of dull brown or
dull orange giving off the appearance of some contrast, but very little with enough
sunlight filtering through to let you know it was still day, but the light of
late afternoon only.
And then I couldn’t tell
if I was disappearing into the environment or just observing it. I wondered why
everything around me was evolving or changing, yet time kept still.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I started reading The
Story of a Soul, the autobiography of Saint Theres of Lisieux. It was late
at night so I only had read the prologue and most of the first chapter then
fell asleep. It was a contrast to have read about her first descriptions of
arriving in Lisieux and starting to discuss her impressions of the flowers
there and then having the dream described above. It was one of those dreams where
you are about 80-90 percent asleep yet still slightly conscious. I woke back up
and started thinking about it. What did it mean? I came to the conclusion I am
not a saint and I better wake up to that fact or I could be spending quite some
time in purgatory.
Cheers
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