WE WENT SHOPPING LAST NIGHT: Unloved II (Dream Journal)

Artwork: "Miss My Shopper"
By Skitch

NOW: 

Dream Journal


Last Night, we went shopping again, you and I. It was summer in the south, and we were friends and family. I wore a white sun dress and you had on jeans and a billowy top. We walked through a mall that we'd been through many times. We were celebrating and mourning. We had received the news that you had been accepted to a great art school. I asked you several times if it was in Miami, but I never received a reply. I think you did not hear me. Wherever it was, you and your fellow were moving there soon. I was happy to see you successful and excited. I was sad to know that days like these would soon be gone. I imagined they would pepper my life now and then when we went to see you two and when you came to see us. I watched your face when I asked you questions. The thoughtful turn of your eyes and twist of your lips when you pondered, so familiar to a mother's heart. I marveled at the things you touched or picked up, or showed me that you would buy "if"... If you had more money. If it came in blue. If you could ever find shoes to match. I celebrated when you chose something I loved, and I celebrated when you chose something that did not suit me at all, thrilled with both our similarities and our differences. I resolved to put back money for the bike basket and the purse... little surprises, going away presents. I thought of the towels I bought you just as you went off that first year to college. What a pleasure and a promise, what an honor to assist in such a marvelous life. And what fun to go shopping with you though I don't often like shopping at all. Lots of women were having their hair done, I mentioned that maybe next time we came we would do the same. "Hmmm?" You said when I asked if the college was in Miami. You showed me a baggy shirt you liked, and I told you it looked like something your aunt would love, though I did not mention that she only likes true colors and sure fits. It was styled in a manner she likes and made of a material she wears frequently, so it was true enough. We started and ended with outside booths and a summer wind pulling at our hair the way time pulled at our lives, and I awoke to the reality that you no longer speak to me.