Waking Up Laughing

Watching the news I sometimes wonder if many members of our society suffer from the dysfunctional misapprehension that if they appear happy the whole weight of the world will come crashing down on them.  If there are not enough murders, assaults, traffic deaths, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks, newscasters focus their attention on the weather:  too hot, too cold, not enough rain, OH MY GOD IT'S GOING TO SNOW A FOOT!

Similarly, music, poetry, and other arts often seem dominated by references to love lost, love scorned, drugs, and death (thank heaven we no longer have to endure the lugubrious "my sweetie died" songs of the 1960s).  If you peruse the Young Adult section of your local chain bookstore (I used to work in one) you will find entire series of books whose theme is "too young to die".  I am still weighing whether or not the Twilight series is preferable to these maudlin paperbacks.  Song lyrics are chock-full of references to dreams:  sweet dreams, broken dreams, "dream a little dream of me".  Singers even wake up screaming.

But do they ever wake up laughing?

Yesterday I did.

In the dream I realized that I hadn't seen my dog Leeza in like a week.  Perplexed, I sought out my husband, David:

Nyssa (left) and Leeza (right)

"Where's the dog?"  I asked.

David's expression was that of a man who had been dreading this moment.  "Borneo," he replied.

"BORNEO???" I shouted.  "They EAT dogs in Borneo!"

"It's okay!" he assured me.  "She's on her way home!"

David

Emily

It turned out (in the dream) that one day Emily (our daughter) was home by herself when someone accidentally came to the wrong house with a UPS-like call tag, and she didn't check with us before sending the dog off.  David had been hoping that I wouldn't notice the dog was missing until she got back!

Borneo.  I awoke, rolled over and looked up at the hotel room ceiling.  Borneo?  I chuckled.  I got out of bed.  "Borneo,"  I said out loud.  "Borneo!"  I began laughing in earnest, until I couldn't see, could hardly breathe, and certainly speak even to say "Borneo" again.


Over the course of the day, fragments of the dream surfaced.  This dream had been about miscommunication and innocent mistakes turned serious:  earlier in it someone had posted something totally inappropriate on a website because they had accidentally copied and pasted the wrong pictures.

And when I got home, I forgave Emily for accidentally sending he dog to Borneo...