Last night I dreamed that I was taking Muki for a walk to get her out and try to socialize her with other dogs. We were on a sunny country road with abounding fields of green, similar to a road that Wade and I had biked on up at Lincoln Creek last summer.

Muki would run far ahead of me and come running back to check on me with her ears flopping behind her in the wind.

Suddenly she disappeared and I began to worry that I had stupidly given her too much freedom and should have had her on a leash. What would the kids say if I lost her? Suddenly my feet began to slip and slide. I looked down and the road had turned to sheer mud mixed with wet cow paddies. Knowing I was going down I looked embarrassingly at the other walkers out in the fields. How could I have gotten into this mess?

I fell belly down into the mucky depths and began to sink. Where was Muki? I realized that this could be it for me and my boys would never know that their mother had gotten swallowed by a mud puddle.

As my head began to go under, Muki appeared in front of me. I grabbed hold of her collar and she pulled me out with her puppy strength.

When we dried off and headed back for home I saw that all the other walkers had taken a well-trodden path through the muck that I had not noticed before. I laughed at how I could have missed such an obvious trail that would have saved me from nearly dying.

Today, we get Muki a choke collar and teach her to not growl and lunge after other dogs. If we can train Muki to not be so afraid than she will be a wonderful addition to our lives.

I am afraid to think of what we will be raising if we fail.

My father got his three daughters on skis at the early age of three and dragged us out to the icy Vermont slopes rain or shine. I thank him for giving me a sport that gives me an absolute feeling of freedom without the fear. But in this moment in time, as I watched my friend ski down the foreboding ski slope, the fear came on strong.

I had no choice but to follow and as I made the leap my skis caught a twig and I plummeted down into a deep crevasse. I landed at the bottom with my heart racing. I looked way up and saw light and safety above but I was underneath the snow and I was hyperventilating with the fear that if I moved at all the snow would cave in and suffocate me. I wasn’t ready to die, I still had so much more to show and teach my children and I wanted to grow old with Wade.

A voice inside my head shouted, “CALM DOWN.” I listened, knowing that the next few seconds could save or kill me.

I awoke from my dream, my pajamas drenched with sweat and my heart pounding and I heard the message loud and clear.

During Christmas break I have been doing my best to keep the boys busy outside, despite the freezing temperatures, moving them from sled hills to skating rinks to ski slopes packed with boozed infused tourists and crazy locals.

I need to calm my twitch and find my inner calm and we all need a day at home.

I was in New York City going to a Twitter conference. It was pouring and I was walking the city streets lost. It was the last day of the conference and I was up on 132nd street and had to get down to the lower East side. Knowing that nobody can get anywhere in NYC in the pouring rain, unless they walk or take the subway,  I started walking. When I lived in the city I developed Enochlophobia and no longer had the ability  to immerse myself in the chaos of  crowds and congested transportation.

I approached a man for help as I rolled my luggage behind me. He was a tall Afro-American, in his fifties, and his name was George. We instantly liked each other and we walked together for a while in the wind and rain. We searched for gargoyles and admired the beautiful old buildings. I offered him some chicken breasts that I had in my bag so that he could them  home to his family.

George gave me ideas on how I could get to the airport and we talked about Twitter. He had a Twitter account but he never used it, which I told him is what everybody says to me. I told him that I am always searching for Twitter people that I have met face to face because it can get lonely out there in the Twitter world.

Then I saw my ex boyfriend, Tom, walking toward me in the rain, holding hands with a little boy. He was wearing Kahki shorts, aviator sunglasses, a collared, plaid short sleeve shirt with a loosened tie and a Burberry raincoat. His clothes were blowing open in the wind.

I started walking backward looking up at him and calling his name. He didn’t see me at first but finally looked down in amusement. He said hello and told me that he was not Tom. After I explained to him what I was trying to do he directed me to the 42nd street subway which he said would be a straight shot down to my destination. As he walked away, I yelled to him through the wind, “and don’t think I didn’t recognize who you really are”. It was Jim Carey who happens to look a lot like Tom. He turned and smiled and waved.

I decided to walk all the way to the East Village and had to quickly pass a marching Irish Band before I got stuck marching with the bagpipers. I was loving New York City and so glad to be back. Adventure was lurking at every step. I thought that if I couldn’t get back for a few days, then just staying and exploring the city could be a wonderful thing.

Next I entered a subway terminal and descending  the stairs. The long stairwell was pitch black. At the bottom there was a desk with two people standing behind it and long lines of wet New Yorkers. Miraculously it was a check in counter for departing flights. I realized that I had left all of my bags with George and I did not have my E-ticket. I was annoyed but at the same time loving the feeling of freedom. Carrying nothing, having nothing. I was also happy that George had my information so that he would not be lost to me forever.

The redheaded, small woman behind the desk was a dancer and was crazy. She told me that there was nothing that she could do for me. I stood there feeling as if I was in one of my favorite movies, “After Hours”, and wondered how I was ever going to get home. Her boyfriend, a heroine addict, came down the stairs and flopped himself on a couch. He talked about their wonderful, crazy days filled with sex and heroine. I wrote her a note saying that if she didn’t help me I would report her for heroine abuse.

END OF DREAM (See if you can find the correlations in the dream to my previously written posts. Who needs Freud when one has a blog?)

Do you Twitter in your dreams?