The curious barking of the dog in the nighttime

You are trying to sleep. A dog barks from far away. It is not a direct hindrance to your drifting off, but the yelps punctuate your thoughts. Unhappy! With! The! Day! Marriage! Is! Crazyhard! You press the pillow more tightly over your head. You think of the demure peach pills in your bathroom that could send you down sleepy river in fifteen minutes flat. But you don't want to rely on them. They're fine for sometimes. But this. This is just run of the mill anxiety. Hormonal blues. You will resist the peach pills.

Saturday there was sun. Everyone seemed happy. Too happy? Shinyhappy, their faces tilted up to the bright sky, as they made comments like, Enjoy it, this is our summer. Your neighbor clipped mint from the backyard for mojitos. The kids played and played in the creek, which is really a drainage ditch, but they don't know the difference.

Sunday was a sharp contrast. Nonweather. You all went to Home Depot so your husband could buy a giant post on which to hook a zipline for Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat. A good dad. You made playdoh, which kept the kids busy for about an hour. You tried not to read into your husbands every footfall, every snap of the cupboard door, each time he wouldn't look at you when you wanted him to.

Only! Two! More! Weeks! Of! School! Holy! Shit! You feel sorry for whoever lives next door to the house with the dog. You wonder about summer. How will you entertain the children? How will you work? And, more importantly, write? How will their constant presence not drive you insane? How can you enjoy the days with them so you can look back on the summer of '10 fondly?

You contemplate starting an anonymous blog so you can say what you really want. You dismiss the idea. If you did, the words and the bad energy would still be out there in the universe. You try to imagine to what extent you bug the crap out of your husband. You know you must. With your silences and then your talking too much and your constant desire for "free" time. He's too nice to tell you, though. Just as well, because you don't really want to know.

Slipping from bed, you pad across the floor in time to the staccato barks. You find the bottle of peach pills and dump a few into your hand. You break one in half and swallow it, bitter remnants lingering on your tongue.

Back between the sheets, your mind quiets almost instantly. The same thoughts hang around, but they're mellower, less insistent. You fall asleep and dream that your teeth fall out into your hand. You used to have that dream a lot when you worked for two controlling publishers at a magazine. Back then, you looked up the meaning of the dream (something you're not wont to do, but did because the dream recurred so many times), the description explained that losing your teeth signifies powerlessness. Or fear of change.

You think about the dream several times the next day, but can't reckon what it has to do with your daily life. As far as you know, you don't feel especially powerless. Nor do you fear change. So you let it go. You get on with things, relieved the dog is silent.

Comments

[m]

Definitely NOT a calendar day, but you are so in touch with your inner self and express it so well in your words. Sundays were always hard for me! Too many expectations..never lived up to what I had hoped. Needed.

[kcinnova]

I could really feel that anxiety and the loosening of its grip at the end. Well written!

[sarah]

beautiful post.

[Jennifer Jo]

The paragraph about the husband and demanding free time and not really wanting to know what he thinks (though mine never hesitates to tell me)---YES.

[Parul]

I have said this before - you are an AMAZING writer!

[Kari]

Take away the kids and the husband and relocate the dog barking to within my own house, and that's my life. Love the reference in the title.

[shelby]

Thank goodness I am not the only one who loses my teeth along with my mind! Excellent.

[Cat]

I have had that dream a ZILLION times. (I even stopped chewing gum at one point because I thought that was why I was having the dream). And I always knew I feared change and felt powerlessness (difficult for a control freak like me!). But I never put them together. Maybe I should look in to those peach pills! Especially if they will prevent that dream.

[Heidi]

I used to have the teeth falling out dream alot. I read in a few places that its not about fear of change but just symbolic of change. In my case I think the changes were big, taking place over time so that when I tried to tie the dream to a particular event or feeling, I couldn't find the association. My now regular powerless/anxiety dream is how I can't pack fast enough to make the plane or how I try to pack and things keep falling out or I keep finding things I need to bring. I have that All The Time these days.

[All Adither]

Heidi, I have that dream constantly, too. Weird.