I dream in color and my dreams are detailed and I remember many of them. I love going to sleep because I enjoy my dreams so often.
After the wreck I didn’t dream. It was weird and unsettling. The neurologist said it was because of the trauma and that maybe I would have those kind of dreams again. Maybe not.
About a year or so after the wreck I started dreaming but only in black and white. In some ways that was even worse. And the dreams were all scary. I woke up with terrible headaches and felt angry for mos of the morning.
Maybe three years into the healing process I started dreaming in color again. It was a long, long road back to reclaiming some of who I used to be.
Today a memory from 2021 popped into my feed. I remember how I felt when I woke up that morning.
The map below is of Mali. I lived in Bamako for one year and in Gao for the other.
What a lovely dream last night. I was in the hospital waiting for Gary to get out of surgery. No idea what that was about but he had a good outcome whatever it was. So I’m standing in the hall and two beautiful African women approached me and we started chatting.
They were wearing traditional dress. In her lilting voice one woman asked me about ancestors and what part of Africa they came from. I told them it was a very long time ago but as I had a DNA test last year I could tell them the number of countries listed.
They turned to each other and laughed and talked and used huge hand motions as they decided what was the primary source of my African blood.
The second one turned to me and said, “Your butt, your butt is not the African part.” They laughed and both agreed my hair was also not the African part.
Then one said, “Mali. You are from Mali.” As it turns out my DNA does show Mali as the highest percentage of African DNA which always thrilled me because I lived there for two years though I was lucky enough to travel to many West African countries in my two years in the Peace Corps.
Then the first woman laughed and laughed when I asked her how she knew if it wasn’t my butt or my hair. “Your heart! Malians have the best and happiest hearts. You must be part Malian!”
That made me so very happy because I loved the people there.
Later during the dream I was on an airplane going to Hawaii. My boss had found a purebred beagle at the high kill shelter in Kentucky. He rescued the dog and she gave birth to a large litter of puppies, also purebred. He gave me one to take to my friend Thomas Craig Kawa’ali’i Pang.
Thomas was so happy and the puppy fell in love with him. We stayed with him and I cooked and we laughed and talked and had fun with his puppy. It was such a relaxing and fun time and I woke up feeling happier than I have felt since I can’t remember. I saw many friends and ate wonderful local foods and we spent time on the water.
I wish I could bring my friend a beagle and I would love to go back to Mali.
