Dream Art / Gallery
where I explore the relationship between dreams, life, and art
I'iwi
2/9/24. Building a nest, Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Big Island, Hawaii.
1/27/24. Dream. This is the first DREAM MAP I've ever drawn, which seems strange given I dream of maps all the time. In this dream, an elderly woman draws the map for me and then I drive to, and then walk the landscape. At one point, I show the map to lost two young women. Later, I share the map with my mom and we talk about shoes. The most important aspect of the map seems to be that there's NO CAMPING on the beach. The town in the distance is Tacaoma (although it isn't anything like the city of Tacoma that I know). A castle sits in the right top corner, and a caldera filled with turbulent ocean water is on the far right.
1/27/24. Last week I returned to Carkeek Park . Hard to believe, but I haven't been since last August. I think it's hard for me to go; not living there, it doesn't feel the same anymore. There's been work in the ravine removing invasive plants, but two new trees have been planted that surprised me - I think they're coastal redwoods. I would have thought that trees planted in the ravine would be natives, but it doesn't seem to be So, now there's a coastal redwood a few feet from a little cedar that I have been watching grow. What does will mean for the future? I painted the image to the left thinking of those two great trees growing together over the centuries. The thought of that feels meaningful to me.
9/21/2023. Dream: I sit on a shore with one end of a rope in my left hand. The rope floats on the ocean water for a short distance then sinks down, like fishing line with a float on the end.
8/16/2023. Dream. I solo climb on a top rope in a man’s basement. I am practicing placing and removing gear and climb up to the top just below the ceiling and then clean the gear on the way down, but in a weird way because I’m in a hurry and not very high so I don’t really need the protection. I think I might even be on a ladder. As I'm doing it I criticize myself for not taking more care even though its practice—what is the point of practice if you don't take it seriously? I wonder if I've forgotten how to safely take down a top rope. Another man—not the one who owns the house—waits in a boat at the bottom of the climb. (Water forms a large pool in the basement, enough to row a boat, maybe part of a lake, or even a river. He wants the special device I used to set the rope at the top. I have two but don’t tell him about the other in my pocket. He waits while I take everything down and hand him the special device, the rope which is a deep ultramarine blue, and all the gear.
Next, I’m upstairs with the man who owns the house. We’re in a bright utilitarian kitchen with a door on the right leading downstairs. His mom sealed up the basement door because his parents are going away and they don’t think the basement will be needed. He tells me he forgot the basement is such a great climbing area and he’s planning to live down in the end anyway in the end, so he’s going to open the sealed door before his parents come home.
CARKEEK PARK, Seattle, WA
Carkeek Barred Owl, Photo: Steve Smith
Barred Owl feather 6/21/23
Public Art: Bald Eagle resting in a crack under the bridge, Mary Street Trail into Carkeek Park, Anonymous
6/23/23. I don't really know how to say how much Carkeek Park has meant to me all the years Steve and I lived in Seattle down the street from that magical place. Ever since we decided to move permanently to Langley, WA, I've tried to say goodbye to this place I love so much and so deeply. A few days ago, on the Solstice I was in Seattle once again, finishing our move. The old house was as packed as she was going to be, and I went walking. I found myself on the Mary Street trail, in conversation once again with Carkeek's remarkable landscape, a place that somehow seems to know more of me than I know of myself. I am filled with gratitude. The images above and below are my way of saying thank you to Carkeek—and its expression of the anima mundi, the soul of the world—for it's generous mirroring of me in times of deepest and darkest wandering.
Baby Cedar
Tree Frog
The Power of Imagination
6/9/23. Dream: I eat dinner at a nice, formal restaurant with my parents. Afterward, a small white dog follows me to the bathroom. I enter a stall and notice the white dog pass in front of my feet from left to right. A grey cat does the same thing. Someone/something grabs my grey linen skirt from under the stall's left side and starts forcefully pulling me over. Then it grabs me through the door and starts putting me in a vice grip. I realize I must fight for my life, really really fight! But, before I start fighting, I think the little dog might be back. I imagine it helping me and biting the hand gripping me. Although the dog doesn't do anything, the imagination of it in the dream seems to make the grip release.
The image on the left started as a painting in response to the dream above, but it felt very numinous for me, and in the end is only loosely associated with the dream through its original intention and the dog and the cat.
Web Connections and Nose Surgery
In outer life, on May 25 & 26 I had quite a major surgery to remove cancer from the bridge of my nose. In the days before the surgery, I spent lots of time painting watercolors and exploring old dreams. At the time, I was surprised by tired I was and how much extra sleeping I was doing. I didn't feel scared, but it seems my body was, and later I saw this period of rest and reflection as the dream world getting ready for a major physical event.
I dreamed the dream below a couple of days before the surgery, while I painted the collages to the left in the weeks before. They appear to tap into similar themes involving chaotic energy paired with weblike connectivity. I'm also struck by the imagery of unseen lines of energy compared to the metaphorical nose, pointing to ideas involving intuition, sense, and following the invisible thread of smell.
Dream: 5/23/23. I realize I'm driving a new car erratically and very fast and slow down. Now, I'm driving ridiculously slowly and feel unbelievably sleepy. I know if I don't stop driving like this I'll kill myself or something bad will happen. I pull over onto the shoulder but have to go around a truck that's also pulled over and is stopped in front of me. I go around the truck, stop the car, and climb into the back seat. Just as I'm about to fall asleep someone knocks on the window. I think it's a cop who's come to arrest me or give me a ticket for driving so fast. I lean over and partially crack the back window. He's not a cop, and now I wonder if he's the truck driver. I'm so sleepy, I can barely talk but I manage to tell him I pulled over to get a nap. He says he has my phone number and when I ask him why he tells me we've been connected through a connected network he belongs to. The connection feels good and I think it might help me in the future.
A River Through the House Cracks Up an Old Bed
5/14/23. Dream:
We've bought a new house, maybe on the Carolina coast. It stands is on a flat piece of land beside a river. I take pictures from the walls of the old house down for moving, but maybe the old house and the new house are the same and the moving is a different kind of moving. An old boyfriend (Doug) helps. I realize the new house sits much closer to water than I realized and risks flooding. Doug and I discuss the situation and he tries to help me plan. The river rises and gets closer until it rushes through the house. Two construction guys come and help clear debris. The river found a drain and is re-rooting and there's no stopping it. A bedroom in the back has an outside bed. (The bed reminds me of a bed in our actual Seattle home basement that once belonged to my parents and before them to an elderly female family relative.) The water destroys the bed and I watch upset as the construction workers break it up and haul it away. The toilet also needs replacing but I care less about this.
While packing up, I remove stored notes stashed between the wall and the ceiling. I stash a very private note, that I don't want anyone to read, in my pocket.
Heading 2
The Mountain, the Birds, and the Mine
5/1/23. Dream: I follow Dad over difficult climbing terrain. We are unroped and I struggle to keep, calling out, "Dad, dad, dad!" trying to get his attention. He moves nimbly and fast, but I’m scared and the rock is loose. It is not clear that I will continue to follow him.
The second dream image shows a cave in a mountain where people used to collect feathers from special, colorful birds. It’s night and people gather in a cave, perhaps to collect the feathers. A mining operation, also present in the cave, involves large loud train cars that are being loaded with ore. The mining scared off the birds and there are no feathers to collect. The two events, the mining and collection of feathers, have competing priorities. (Perhaps the birds have led to the mining?) I feel great sadness for the lost birds.
I painted this dream in first in two different paintings (image above and middle) before working with it in Dream Council. The group helped me recognize that the ore being mined was precious (and might be gold) and that the birds had led the miners there. The mining and the birds were fundamentally linked and the mining was possibly a necesssry progression initiated by the birds.
The following day, contemplating the dream again after bringing it into Dream Council, a clear image of a sailboat whose sail was a mountain flashed into my mind. I painted the image as best I could, and am struck by the similarities and differences between the two paintings, and the incredible stability of the boat.
VERTICAL 4/16/23
THE WATER TREE
4/11/23
The Crab and the Feather
3/23/23. For reasons that remain mysterious, the crab and the feather are symbols of this web project for me. In 2019, I dreamed of a crab-like creature with a very colorful feather associated with it. When I discovered watercolor painting in 2021, I painted a bright orange Dungeness crab without looking at a real one. Living crabs aren't orange, and I felt it was time to try again. I worked on this one (left) all week, but yesterday I stumbled upon a story about crabs and birds that broke my heart while opening it. I've known about the Red Knot for a while, an endangered small bird sometimes called the Moon Bird—perhaps because it spends so many nights flying. Red Knots migrate 14,000 miles every year, briefly stopping in Deleware Bay to feast on horseshoe crab eggs, which, in a biological phenomenon called synchronic spawning, erupt on the same day for the entire population of horseshoe crabs The timing is critical, and yes (of course) this ancient relationship is in great peril through over-harvesting of crabs and climate change. Learning of this phenomenon, I wept: because of our extraordinary planet, because a tiny bird knows exactly when to arrive somewhere along a 14,000-mile journey, and because sometimes the loss of it all seems unbearable.
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The Elemental Wheel
3/15/23. I've been playing with ideas relating the four elements (earth, fire, water, and air) to the directions of the compass and Jung's four psychological functions (sensation, feeling, intuition, and thinking). It feels really personal, but I discovered a few days ago that for me, the east is related to the earth and the psychological function of sensation, the south to fire and feeling, the west to water and intuition, and the north to air and thinking. I painted this a couple of days ago as a representation of that understanding.
An Accident
3/1/23. Dream: I walk along the side of a flat dirt road. A white van passes by me going sideways and slams into cars in the distance in an awful crash. I reach into my pocket for my phone, but it isn't there so I ask someone to call 9-1-1. I notice that a man lying in the road. Someone else is already with him, but I approach and want to get him a blanket. He wails in pain, but then his upper body separates from his lower body and rolls down the road, still screaming. (The image reminds me of the mythic Orpheus' decapitated head.) I follow and when the head and body come to rest I yell, "We need a blanket to cover this man!" Looking down to my left, I notice a blanket with a bunch of kittens bundled up lying on the road. Alarmed, I say, "No! That won't work." Someone picks up the blanket to shake loose the kittens, but the blanket and kittens end up on the injured man. He starts rolling with them and embracing them as they all playing together.
Sea Horse
2/26/23. Lately, dreams about animal torsos have come to my attention. I've had about 5 dreams over 4 years. This is the most recent from a few nights ago:
I’m feeding two friends, a man and a woman, raw steak cut into thin strips. I’ve cared for it carefully trying to make sure it's safe. It came from a sea creature called a sea horse. (A large square bulky animal that doesn't seem anything like a real sea horse. The image is the torso of a horse rising up out of the sea). My friends worry the meat isn't safe. I assure them that I know the butcher who is very careful, but then I worry that perhaps something happened to the meat that I don't know while it was being transported.
A few days after this dream, Steve accidently knocked one of my china horses from the windowsill and it shattered so that only the torso was left. The painting on the left was inspired by the combination of my dreams and the event.
Diving Into the Wreck
I recently discovered Adrienne Rich's poem "Diving into the Wreck." Unable to stop thinking about Rich's poem, I painted this image of Dad's 2014 photo of a shipwreck on Namibia's skeleton coast. The poem describes a completely submerged ship. But, painted boat, resting on the sands of the intertidal zone images an imaginal place I have inhabited for many years now. I also call this place, The Borderlands (from Jerome Bernstein's (2005) Living in the Borderlands: The Evolution of Counsciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma).
The Eye
2/16/23. Grey whale calf looking at us: Magdalena Bay (west coast Baja California, Mexico).
The White-Backed Vulture and the Moon
2/8/23: Watercolor based on Dad's photo: Southern Africa, Oct. 2020
2/4/23. Norwegian poet, Tarjaei Vesaas' poem The Bird (above) seems to have come alive in me this morning. In the past, I imagined Vesaas' bird to be a heron standing on shore, readying its powerful outstretched wings to fly. Today, it seems equally true that this familiar image is also a vulture, staring intently at the ground, getting ready to land.
The Bird
The bird stood ready
by the roadside and waited.
The bird was a miracle.
Its great wingspan
was oblivion.
The rhythm of its heartbeat
was mine.
Together we sailed
into the unknown.
Without questions.
Without sorrow.
Vesaas, T. (2001) Beyond the moment: 101 selected poems
(A. Barnett, Trans.). Allardyce.
The Heron
2/3.23. A friend sent me Wendell Berry's poem The Heron last night. The poem, from Wendell Berry's (2012, p. 157) collection New Collected Poems, tells of Berry slipping his boat into the river and meeting a heron so still he's initially mistaken for a piece of wood. Berry then sees the Heron and they encounter each other:
And then I see
that I am seen. Still as I keep,
I might be a tree for all the fear he shows.
Suddenly I know I have passed across
to a shore where I do not live. (p. 157)
There's something indesribable about feeling seen by a being, human or other-than, that both transports one to another place and lands one exactly where one is: "a shore where I do not live."
I have had Berry's book of poems for a long time, but didn't take time with the Heron until last night. I think this is how poetry is for me; one poem is such a feast, I'm easily overwhelmed, and need reminding to return for another course.
Cosmic Candle
A dream I had 12/29/22 but that I can't stop thinking about. I painted it this morning. I'm on a ship and we're trying to light two candles. One is tall and very unusual, and the other reminds me of a tea light. The tea light makes a noise and the flame sputters out. While we try to relight it, the large one's flame also goes out and it makes a loud gurgling noise. Water pours out from deep inside.
#WJU With Ukrainian Jungians:
Seimar 1 Trauma and Synchronicity
1/30/23. I've got in the habit of painting while listening to webinars as a way of taking notes. Last week I attended a webinar hosted by #WJU (With Jungian Ukrainians) and the painting on the left happened. Afterward, it reminded me of the Ukrainian Easter eggs I learned to paint as a kid growing up in Edmonton, Alberta, an area with a large population of Ukrainian immigrants.
The Cosmic Eggs was a theme that emerged in the talk, titled Trauma and Synchronicity, and available to anyone who wants to listen. Donations are encouraged. I submitted my spontaneous painting in response to #WJU's request for images associated with the webinar series, and the ARAS (Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) posted it! (ARAS #WJU gallery.)
Dream: Two Snakes Shaped Like a Whale Tail
1/20/23. Dream: I am taking a class where I am supposed to find a poem, short story, or picture and write about what it means to me. There's some confusion about the assignment, but in the end, I choose a story about two snakes and an image of them that looks like a whale tail.
In life, I had this dream two mornings before my first of three Saturday classes on oral storytelling by Ben Dennis (see 1/19/23). I painted this image the same day I had the dream. This whale watercolor is based on Steve's photo of a humpback diving to feed in the Salish Sea last year.
Sealskin / Soulskin
1/19/23. I signed up for a class on oral storytelling taught by Ben Dennis and hosted by Rite of Passage Journeys. I have wanted to take this class for a long time, and am excited that Journeys offered it again. It starts on Saturday, and to begin, Ben instructed us to find a fairytale that spoke to us and to spend time with it to know it intimately and so that it feels as though it has become a part of us. Because of my recent dream of the wetsuit/drysuit (1/18/23), and several other earlier dreams of seals, I felt compelled by a well-known fairy tale about a seal/woman who's sealskin is stolen. As part of my preparation for class, I painted this seal.
Dream: Wetsuit / DrySuit
1/18/23. I'm at a marina with a group. Someone—like Steve but not Steve—is with me. We've been swimming in the marina water wearing wetsuits but in a moment of chaos some boats are turned over and I lose my wetsuit. I tell the man organizing the group that I lost my wetsuit. He starts out nonchalantly looking for the suit, but gets angrier and angrier as he can't find it. He tells me, "You be getting another suit!" I quietly respond that I have my own suit, and point to my drysuit (the blue one I actually own) lying in a corner. He ignores me.
Painting Névé
1/18/23. I've written about our cat Névé for a few entries now, and I continue to work with his story through art and dream. This painting from a few days ago comes from my favorite photo of him. His eyes were the most extraordinary blue! Starting was really hard, and I kept stopping to cry, but writing down his story and being with his image while painting—just letting my thoughts wander as they will—seems to open my heart and allow something I've held onto a long time let go. My judgment of myself, and some of the stone walls I built around the circumstances of his death, seem less solid and more approachable. Sometimes, I sense more genuine compassion for him and myself than I've been able for a long time. The piece I intend to publish on my blog continues to evolve but I hope to post it soon.
Eagles on boats and rafts.
12/27/22. This painting depicts a dream from a long time ago (4/6/11) but it's come to my attention recently because eagles have been on my mind. I can't stop listening to the podcast The Emerald: Current Trends Through a Mythic Lens and a recent episode on birds and imagination. Josh Schrei, the podcaster, comments on Western culture's hyperrational corruption of the image of the sun and solar birds like the eagle. Schrei adds that our bodies need the sun and that being in relationship to it in a good way is essential.
My struggle of the past 6 or 7 years since leaving veterinary surgery could be framed as coming to terms with the consequences of rational calculated consciousness (veterinary surgery) overtaking a capacity to navigate with integrity the rightness of things. Euthanizing our beloved cat Névé appears to fit into this lopsidedness.
I've noticed (not surprisingly) that my handful of dreams about eagles contain a lot of energy. In my first recorded dream of them, the eagles lay on rafts and boats in the ocean drying out their wings. Other birds were in the water: ducks that belong there and quails that don't and are land birds, poor swimmers and fliers but very social.
The hovering figure at the top of the painting depicts the mysterious end of the dream. I'm swimming in the water with the birds and a plate of food between a man and his son, and the man accuses me of being a shape-shifting witch.
Dream: The Turquoise Necklace.
12/26/22 On the left is a photo of Névé and a painted collage of images of a dream the night after spending so much time writing about Névé and paint his box of ashes, as I describe in the post below.
I remembered two scenes from the dream:
Scene 1: I'm packing a car with others getting ready to leave. I go into the house to say goodbye to my parents and get caught up helping Dad with dishes while Mom watches. Some bowls and glasses have ice cubes in them and I throw the ice into the sink.
Scene 2: Mom finds a turquoise stone necklace that she loves. She then discovers who it belongs to. She misplaces it, then finds it again, but while deciding what to do about it a cardboard box arrives in the mail. She's very excited.
A few points struck me. The turquoise necklace feels related to Neve's eyes and the one I painted on the box in the strip below this one. I'm haunted by Névé's eyes. Perhaps this dream points to a question: who do they belong to now, and what might be done? Second, there are so many box shapes in this dream! A closed box holds something mysterious that can be exciting or dread-inducing. Third, could the ice down the sink be a thawing or releasing of frozen things? "Opening" Neve's box feels like all these, and a lot more. besides.
Névé's Box
12/25/22. For the past week or so, I've been working on a blog about the cat Steve and I euthanized in 2014. Névé's a difficult topic—for me alone and us together—and being able to approach him with openness and a certain kind of curiosity despite its pain says a lot about how far our partnership has come and how much trust we've rebuilt since that fateful decision 8 1/2 years ago.
Yesterday, I spent much of the day painting the box where Névé's ashes still lie. The two images on the left are the result. As I struggle to put the experience and my feelings about it into words, spending time with Névé yesterday, not really thinking about him exactly but just being in his presence, felt important.
A shed snakeskin from Eastern Washington sat on our bookshelf near Névé's box of ashes. There for years, and falling apart, a few sections remained intact enough to paint. I also placed a small white stone from the beach on top of the box. By the time I made it to the second painting, the stone had transformed into one of Névé's remarkable, penetrating blue eyes, watching.
Dream: A Desert Climb
12/19/22. A dream from a couple of nights ago: I'm climbing small sandstone formations in the desert with some friends. I've led the climb I am on once before, but this time it seems much harder. I feel secure where I am, but the next move scares me. My right foot rests on an especially good ledge and I want to stay where I am. Although it looks like a big jug, I can't quite reach the next hold for my left hand. I stand thinking about what's next, but also just want to go to sleep. Others below watch and wait.
I dream about climbing a lot and I undestand them as images of how I feel about something in the moment. My next blog piece involves an emotional topic and, even though I have a small supportive audience, I feel afraid to put my ideas into the world in this way. I love the dream's little details too. Like, I write with my left hand. I also think this is the first time I've tried to paint myself in any detail. I'm wearing my favorite orange Mountain Hardware pullover that I've worn climbing so many times in the desert.
Rilke's Swan
12/18/22. A few days ago, I learned there was a lone swam in the middle pool at The Earth Sanctuary. So Steve and I went yesterday, and the swan took our breath away. It seemed to glow on the dark water. I read Rilke's poem The Swan—a favorite of mine—and Steve took the stunning photo which inspired my watercolor.
The Swan
This heaviness—toiling on as if bound
through a landscape of things forever unfinished,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.
And dying—this no longer holding
of that ground we stand on every day,
like his cautious lowering himself
into the water, which received him gently
and which, so happy in its passing,
withdraws beneath him, wave upon wave;
while he, infinitely still and sure,
with ever greater confidence and royalty
and self-possession deigns to glide.
Rilke, R. New Poems: A Revised Bilingual Edition (p. 77). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
Inside My Heart
12/18/22. The image on the left came out of a guided meditation from a couple of months ago. I had the feeling of a little man, banding on the walls of my heart. I don't know if he wanted out, or if he wanted to get my attention. However, it has just occurred to me that he might have something to do with an essay I have been working on. I am trying to write something about the cat Steve and I decided to euthanize in 2014. There is a pain for him that is stuck. A part of me understands why I thought euthanasia was our only option for Neve, but another part of me thinks it was the most terrible decision I ever made.
Dream: The Sacrifice
11/24/22 A few days ago I had this apparently simple dream: A man is raising calves and feeding them milk. Then bulls. Then buffalo. He’s trying to feed the buffalo milk first through a hole in their head but it comes back. Then through its mouth but it vomits it up. So he decides the only thing to do is kill the buffalo.
Steve glanced at the dream image I was painting (left) and wanted nothing to do with it, commenting "It looks like an awful documentation of factory farming." It is a creepy dream and an uncomfortable image. I woke up upset that the man killed the buffalo, and mystified by the weird combination of cattle and milk imagery. Trying to feed the bull and buffalo milk feels like terribly misguided: nourishment that's all mixed up. After spending time with the dream, the final image continues to move me. The man stands above the dead buffalo, staring into nothing, still holding the rifle. I've been thinking about the themes of Hero and Sacrifice for a long time, and I wondered, did the dream man keep feeding and nurturing these animals long past the right time to avoid what he knew he had to do? But, eventually, the inevitable killing had to be faced. I was overcome with compassion for the man and his difficulty killing the animal that he loved for his community.
Deception Pass, 2017
11/19/22. I'm writing today from Steve and my new place on Whidbey Island. Just before I opened this photo, I set up the room we agreed to call my office. As I was working, I realized that in all our years together I had never before carved out a private space above ground. Virginia Woolf's room with a view suddenly made sense!
This photo connects this meaningful moment with another view from Whidbey on this day in 2017. (Probably like everyone else with an email inbox and a phone, I receive a daily collection of photos I took on the same day in the past.) Today's photo stunned me with both its beauty and timing.
Burned out, exhausted, and personally and professionally lost, I had left veterinary medicine earlier in the year and longed for the wisdom of ancient conifers. I drove north looking for a place a friend once called "Where the Trees are Big." I don't know if I found it, but I did find old growth trees and relief. I laughed at a comical great blue heron—usually so SERIOUS— trying to balance on a floating bed of kelp. And then, as the sun set in the west, the still, eery light took my breath away.
Moon Nature
11/7/22. An image a day is going poorly.
But, I painted this while staying at the Amethyst Inn Reagent's Park, Victoria, B.C while visiting my family for Halloween. Not exactly a dream, it was Halloween, and this is how the ideas working through me integrated and expressed themselves in watercolor. The previous week, I read a section of Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis and Edinger's (1995) commentary on the section titled The Moon Nature (Jung, CW 14, Personification of the Opposites, pars. 214-233).
Edinger, E. (1995). The mysterium lectures: A journey through C. G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis. Inner City Books.
Dream: The Soul of the House
9/13/22. This is my first watercolor from my new project: an image a day.
Last night, I dreamed of this being. He was a stone object that was the color of rich dark wood. He was in a museum and he was covered in the most delicate carvings. As I ran my fingers over his fine lines him, he told me telepathically that I should scratch his chin. As I did this, his chin also felt like a tangle of intricate branches. The museum note on him said: This carving is from the Mayan civilization. It is the finest example of this kind of carving. The museum was getting ready for another group of people to come through it was time for Steve and to leave.
As I was painting this image, I realized this being might just be the soul of our Seattle home. I feel a part of me possibly getting ready "for another group of people to come." Our BlueRidge home, which has meant so much to me and held me through the most difficult of times, s/he feels a kind of museum to my life, and, perhaps, is faintly whispering: "Sometimes it is time to go."