Visions

The other morning I woke from a dream in which I had been screaming. I don't know if I actually screamed aloud though. I didn't wake my son and he has been so protective of me lately that I am sure he would have come running in to see what was going on. What is so unusual about this dream is that I never scream. I did not even scream, moan, or groan while giving birth and that hurt like hell!!

The dream started off nicely enough. People were swimming in Biloxi Back Bay and enjoying themselves. That was weird in itself, for they looked like tourists and no one swims that close to the plant. I was back at work in the new offices. My co-workers and I were out on the docks looking across Biloxi Back Bay. We were trying to figure out what used to be where. You know, that was where such and such had a house, that used to be where such and such business used to be.

Then I asked the question, 'Why does the air look so dirty?'. All of a sudden, in the trees across the Bay you could see the trees being whipped around by a huge gust of wind. You could tell the wind was heading for us. We all scrambled to our feet, each of us screaming our heads off and ran into the offices and ducked under the desks. The wind tore off the awning that had been covering the dock.

I guess it's to be expected to have nightmares about going through the storm itself. It scared me like nothing else I have been through. Since Hurricane Katrina made landfall during the day, you could see everything that was going on. I have never seen trees whipped like that. The sound the wind made was indescribable, loud, and unrelenting. Debris was flying past windows and during the worst part of it, my family was gathered in the living room, staring blankly at the destruction going on outside and praying and hoping that the roof over our heads would not be ripped off. I cannot describe those long hours adequately. This storm took so long to go through, we did not think it would ever end. But it did.

There are so many things that each one of us has to deal with now. The terror during the storm, the shock at the massive destruction the storm caused, and the rebuilding of our lives. I lost it this weekend. I mean really lost it. I got drunk for the first time in over 20 years. It helped me have a decent night's sleep and am feeling a whole lot better.