4:21 am

either it's from falling asleep to a mazzy star album on repeat, or it's from spending several hours talking to you before that, that caused me to wake up at 4:21 this morning (7 minutes ago from when i'm writing this) from an extremely vivid, strange dream about you.

you came to visit, or i came to visit? my family, my grandparents, at my house, or my grandma's house (sometimes it was both? i think it was even a walmart for part of the time.) but that wasn't the first thing, the first thing i can remember is that i was up in a loft of some sort, like a loft in my cousin's old barn, open to the ground below. i was laying up in it on a blanket, with a pillow, talking to you - maybe it was on the phone or the computer, but it wasn't typing, it was actually talking. we were talking about music of course, sharing songs. you were saying things and they were showing up in my head like type, and i was saying things back like i was typing them back at you in my head. it was kind of dark, cold outside, but not freezing, just a nice evening. i was showing you some songs you didn't know, and you were telling me about them from a new perspective, and they felt like new songs. i went to find more.

i left you and forgot to tell you where i was going. i walked to nelson, because that's where the music was, only it was a shoe store, or a hat store? it was a shoe music store that also sold hats. i had to find a hat with ear flaps to cover my earbuds. there were strange people in the store, kept staring at me, like i didn't belong there, like i was trying to hard to be meaningful and they could tell, or they didn't like my music, or they didn't like that i was paying more attention to the music than i was to them. i was looking for albums to get for you, only they were boots, each boot played music somehow. i pulled the hat, a knit one with black and white stripes, down further over my ears and chose... six... six boots, i think. one was small, dark grey with black laces, one was black and scrunched up. one was blue, somewhere between sky and robin's egg blue, one was also grey like the first, only lighter, and it had white bird silhouettes all over it. then another black one - not really a boot, more of a bootie - it folded down, with a zipper. and an old one, like a combat boot. thick sole.

i went back to the barn with my prizes. you were there on the blanket, laying on your back looking up at the sky, talking like i hadn't left, i felt bad. i apologized, and showed you the music i'd gotten. you liked it, you wanted to talk about it. i was disarmed by the fact that you were actually there, and wasn't paying as much attention to what you were saying as i was just watching you. i kept looking at your hands, the way you were holding the boots, talking about them like they were important, like they meant things, and i was embarrassed because they weren't better. you wanted to know where i got them - i heard that part, i was listening - and i told you. you got mad at me, that i had gone all that way and hadn't told you, upset that i hadn't taken you with me, you said it would have saved me from the difficult stares of the strange people at the store. we went back together, to look for pairs for the music i'd brought you, but they were gone. we were sad that the music was gone.

there was a couple there, with a little girl with red hair, it was curly. you were off looking at music down one of the aisles, and i was talking to the girl, telling her about the time that i had red hair just like hers, i was dancing and twirling for her, she was laughing. her mom made some comment about how she was finally old enough for her hair, or for the dance, or something that i can't quite remember anymore. you came and took my arm, pulling me toward the door. we were done at the store and you wanted to talk to me some more, about the music. i followed you, i was watching you talk to me as you walked, mesmerized by the way your mouth was moving. i was so glad you were there, glad you'd consented to come visit my family with me, but not sure how to explain your presence.

when we got to my house, i told my mother and grandma that we were old friends. we were trying to find you room, a place to stay, i wanted you to stay by me but no one would have that. we laid out old blankets and pillows on the landing of the stairs, you left to shower, i left to, pull myself together, to explain something? to change and hide - i can kind of see all those situations in my head still, from the dream, but i can't remember - my grandpa was there, but he was actually one of my coworkers, telling me something about charles schultze, how he was one of three people who were saved by charlie brown.

you were showering in my grandma's bathroom, i put in a load of laundry in the washing machine in the basement. i saw grandma go into her room and i panicked - not that she would see you naked, but that she'd see your long hair and beard - scruff? i think it was just scruff, it wasn't a beard. I had to stop her and explain that you were a friend who was visiting and needed a place to stay. she wanted to make sure we weren't sleeping together in the same room. you came out fully dressed and i introduced you, and you were so gracious and genteel, it made me feel awkward and clumsy.

i took you down the hall to the kitchen to meet my mother and sisters, they were making dinner, something with lobster and something else with chocolate, they needed my help. you stood in the doorway, just kind of watching me interact with them, and i felt like my sister was being ridiculous, trying to tell you all my embarrassing childhood storie. i was helping mom make soup, in a big dutch oven on a giant copper stove - old fashioned, the kind with the little lids over the holes into the fire below, i thought i dropped the soup into the oven, but i didn't, i told mom we had to leave. she said to get more lobster - i apologized to you for my strange family and we left in one of the cars. you were laughing at me, watching me. amused at how flustered i was because of my family, how over-apologetic i was.

we were driving in a small car, more of a golf cart, really, only without a top, and i was driving, but i was on the right-hand side of the car. you were quiet, watching me, almost panicking, i think. something about the way i was driving was making you panic. we kept having to drive through these patches of water, murky water - like we were driving through the avenues of some fancy english garden and there was magically going to be a lobster at the end of one of them, and parts of them were overflowing with water. the car almost overturned, but i stopped it just in time. we drove past my dog.

i think that was how we ended up at the walmart, anyway, they didn't have an lobster, but they did have a christmas tree, and we decided to get one, or my grandma decided to get one? some old mexican lady who looked like grandma, but wasn't, decided we should get one. and then she wanted us to find ornaments for it, but they were all sold out. it was christmas tree after-christmas clearance, and everything was picked over. i was wearing flip flops, there was something in my shoe irritating me and i flicked it out as we were looking through the trashy, broken ornaments left over on the clearance shelves, and you stopped and went to pick it up, but i wouldn't let you. i picked it up and threw it away, surprised that you were so anti-litter, it was just a pebble. you left and came back with a bucket and a mop, you mopped the floor which turned back into my house or something - we ran into my brothers who we thought were playing video games at first, but it turned out they were building a racetrack.

you watched, bemused, while i helped them figure out part of it, and then i apologized for making you stand there with a bucket of cleaning supplies, you told me not to worry about it, you liked watching me like that. we went to put them back away in grandma's bathroom, under the cupboard, where they went, and she caught us (which was apparently a bad thing?) she told us we couldn't sleep at the top of the stairs, that we'd need to find you a room. i took you down to the basement, and you were teasing me about my blanket (it was a care bears blanket? i don't have one in real life) good-natured teasing, not at all malicious. i went to find a new one, and when i came back, you had folded all of my laundry, and i couldn't find you anywhere.

i went on a hunt, anxious about which of my family members had cornered you and were lecturing you on something or other and embarrassing me (it seemed to be a theme for the evening, although the tone of the dream wasn't like that. the whole dream was set during dusk, or twilight, it was actually strikingly beautiful) i went outside and you were out there with work gloves on, getting a shovel! i was appalled that my family had somehow conned you into yard work, and i told grandma that you were probably exhausted from an already busy day and that you were NOT going to do any yard work, regardless of the circumstances and even if you had offered to.

i pulled you away a safe distance from my crazy family, but my little brother was filming something - the moon, it was a huge moon, low, waning - and he couldn't situate the picture right, kept getting glare. we helped him, well, you helped him, get some amazing shots of it, and then handed me the camera.

i was replaying what we'd recorded, as we were recording it? suddenly the cul-de-sac was filled with high-piled bookshelves, it was a book store, but there was no roof, just a purple sky, there were twinkling red lights - no, not red, in fact, i don't think they were lights at all. they were fireflies. fireflies luminescing in the book stacks that you were pulling me through. there was music playing, i was watching the sparkles of the fireflies in the small screen on the camcorder and then in real life and laughing, amazed.

i woke up, and it felt like one of those dreams i needed to write down. my earbuds were still in, i hadn't moved the whole night, and this song was playing, half over...