In my last night's dream I was personal assistant to an elderly, besotted Peter O'Toole. I cared for him, guided him home after a day's meandering, put him to bed, and was present just to listen to his stories, which I loved. He was very fond of me. When I lay down with him at night he seemed happy to have me there. He was staying in a great castle comprised of tiny rooms and serpentine hallways. The walls were painted brilliant colors--red and gold and orange--and heaps of colorful clutter lay everywhere. There was a bit about kings, royalty, marble statues, fragments of armor and ornate swords and daggers. He was expected on-set for a film he was in. Even though O'Toole was so very old and so very very drunk we had great fun together out in the world, like children, laughing at our jokes and sneaking in places and playing pranks. As I chauffeured him about I felt pure delight and privilege to be with him as he made a spectacle of himself, and to bask in his seeming affection. But after all it wasn't so deep: when the shoot ended and managers swooped in to take him away he didn't think twice about it or look back at me as they left.

But it was so much fun, so much fun while it lasted.

***

Cool this morning. Only 60 degrees at 9 a.m. This summer has been remarkably cool; we've breached 90 only once or twice, and every night is cold.

Now that I understand my neurology I finally can grasp the root cause of my lifelong dilemma--my longing for the company of others and my inability to cope with their presence. Alone, I diminish and pine, yet I pay for any lengthy social exposure with days spent getting my mind right again. Now I understand the situation I feel better about it. Wistful, but finally accepting. It all comes down to strategizing and balance. Our biweekly Game Days serve me well (even though at four hours they are at least an hour too long).

***

Words erupt at the surface like rising springs. Freshets. The ground of me ruptures with little raptures of clear water from depths repressed/suppressed, pressed and pressured. I love this feeling. I've missed it for years. How shall I shut it off again?

Don't. Don't.

***

Later I'll drive out for errands--we're out of milk and potatoes and low on O.J. I must mail some DVDs to youngerSon and fetch drying baskets from storage. The afternoon's task: pluck a peck of dandelion leaves in the shaded yard east of the house. Snip some yarrow stalks to hang for drying. Maybe comfrey leaves and echinacea blossoms, though I hate to take them, they're so pretty.

I've read about one-quarter now of Weeds, Guardians of the Soil and it delights me to know the sweet clover out back is breaking up the subsoil hardpan with its fierce roots, and the pigweed pulls moisture up along its rootsurfaces from deep down to up top where it nourishes everything around it.

In the dream diary of Graham Greene I read

The waking have one world in common,
but the sleeping turn aside each
into a world of his own.
                  Heraclitus of Ephesus, 500 BC

"There is another side to what we call dreams . . . ," Greene says. "They contain scraps of the future as well as of the past. . . . As I look through the long record of my dreams I note time and again incidents of the Common World that have occurred a few days after the dream." Or in my case decades.

And a little flash just now as I grasp the connection--this is why I am reading these books concurrently. Can you see? Dreams are to waking what weeds are to crops. Dreams open up the hardpan down deep. They make a path for nourishment to rise along. They bring forth moisture during drought and warm the ground in winter.