Spit & the Forgotten.

I began dreaming that a friend, my family, and I were driving through town in my dad's white Jeep. It was Christmas time, and all of the houses were covered in red and white string lights. As we made our way up a hill hugging the edge of town, I turned around in the front seat (a better way to look at the lights, I guess), and began singing sadly to myself. After a moment, a telephone rang, and my mom answered it. A loud, faintly recognizable voice poured through loudly on the other end.

"Oh, shit," I said to myself, grimacing. "It's him."

I referred to Gabriel's father by his last name and saw the surprise in my friend's face. As my mom passed the phone to me, I rubbed my eyes and found myself standing near a fence in my parents' backyard. Unlike the fence there now, this fence was tall, black, and bare of the lilac that fills it out in reality. As we talked I paced slowly and mindlessly. He told me he wanted to come visit, explained that if my family could talk to him and see how much trouble he was going through, that they would rally to lower his child support payment. I held back a laugh and tried to tell him that his idea probably wouldn't work.

"Why?" he asked, sounding puzzled but on-guard.

"Well," I began tentatively, "I don't think my family believes you have much reason to complain." I tried to leave it at that, but he told me he would be arriving in half an hour.

I hung up the phone and noticed my dad standing next to me. Suddenly, I began coughing violently, deeply. My father looked at me worriedly and tried to rub my back. After a minute, I spit up a mouthful of thick mucous and went to change my clothes. In my parents' bedroom, I found a red long-sleeved shirt I bought myself in Monterey - the first thing I got myself after finding out I was pregnant. Slipping it on over my head, I noticed an old black Audi pulling up outside, the same car we drove in and broke down together. In front of his car, a giant black SUV was parked, partially on the grass. He brought his lawyer? I thought to myself, figuring I shouldn't have been surprised. I walked through the window into the backyard and saw him standing on the deck, taller than I remembered him. His face was filled out with a short beard, black and already flecked with gray. He looked older, more tired but kinder, and smiled when he saw me.

I walked up to him and gave him a small hug, and saw that there were four older people sitting in the living room. He explained that he brought his grandparents, both sets, as they had always wanted to come in the first place. I didn't quite understand, but shrugged it off. He quickly noticed Gabriel playing in the garden at the end of the yard. He was singing to himself and had his hands full with small shovels and dirt. Keith smiled and ran toward the garden, turning instead to a plot of wilted irises. On his hands and knees, he threw his head gleefully into the plant and began smelling some small, new, purple buds I hadn't noticed before.

Three-year-old Dreams.

Gabriel has been dreaming about flying, happy pigs lately. He also told me a few days ago that he had a dream with nice snowmen with hats on. When he was about two, I began asking him what he saw while he slept. For the first six months or so, he always said he dreamed about the ocean. Each morning, I would roll over and have a small conversation with a fellow sleepy-eyed soul and he would laugh or furrow his eyebrows as I told him about my dreams. After I finished, he would always say, "I saw the ocean. Water, water." A lot of my dreams involve water, and as it's a traditional symbol for emotion, I can easily understand why.

But for the last few weeks, Gabriel has been telling me, almost every morning, that he dreams of horses. One sad morning, he reported that he had a "very sad dream about horses fighting bad." Other mornings, he dreams of horses running, playing, or talking. We haven't been learning about horses or paying them any special attention, but I have had an image of horses stuck in my mind since the beginning of spring after seeing a beautiful photo online. Horses are such a sweet sign of strength and grace. Perhaps we'll have a little bit more of that in our lives someday soon?