some days i feel like a chesapeake bay retriever. other days i feel like a wounded officer from some ramshackle disbanded army. one is n0t necessarily better than the other. i think the important thing is just to act p0lite and leave the empty seats to other people on the train, no matter how long the ride, no matter how far the distance. if there’s a price for dignity, it’s a small price to pay.

last night i dreamed we were sitting along a body of water, either a swimming pool or a pond or the sea. i guess we were sunbathing, although there was no sun, not even one. just a vacant sky. you looked completely different. a different body. a different face. different hair and different legs. and a different voice. but i knew it was you because who else could it have been? (i am not privy to that kind of information.)  we were sitting there talking, but in muted tones. i got the sense we were not talking about your concussion, nor the 18 kind of headaches it induced. we were not talking about your neurologist. nor your osteopath. we were not talking about applying for welfare.

i recall i once told you that i felt that i had gotten off easy because by the time i had emerged from my concussion, i had no memory of anything. not even one single headache. a blessing in disguise.

but that’s not what we were talking about as we sat by the water. it felt easier than that.