𝗔 𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗔𝗗𝗗𝗦 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗠𝗧𝗛, 𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗔𝗟𝗦𝗢 𝗥𝗘𝗚𝗥𝗘𝗧

              

A recurring dream that's been increasing my endorphin level in recent days includes a woman, now elderly, I've no intention of embarrassing.  The fleeting moment, when she stopped me in the school hallway to offer a compliment my lagging social development totally botched, is firmly etched in my brain to my substantial regret.

The girl, I've since learned, was of Latvian descent, escaping postwar Russia with her family, to emigrate to the Pacific Northwest, avoiding deportation to the Gulag and persecution for her beliefs. (Of course, I knew none of that sixty years ago.)

The fantasy goes further, my dear reader, as it builds a vision of a life we might have shared in the  two-story house with a carport pictured above, facing the great mountain many call Rainier but that is more accurately known as Tahoma. That name, Tahoma, carries far deeper meaning. For the Puyallup, Nisqually, Yakima, and other indigenous peoples, Tahoma is “the mother of waters,” a living presence whose glaciers feed the rivers that sustain the land. To imagine a home beneath Tahoma feels like grounding the fantasy in something enduring and sacred, rather than using the surname of a white explorer who never actually set foot on the mountain. 

Around my dream home, I see the Douglas firs that define the Pacific Northwest. These trees aren’t just lumber or scenery, they’re living pillars of the ecosystem, stabilizing soil, storing carbon, sheltering wildlife, and offering the same sense of resilience that native communities once drew on when using them for medicine and tools. In the dream, the firs seem to stand guard around the house, symbols of steadiness in a life that might have been.

This recurring dream, then, is not about holding on to a person I once knew, but about what that person represented in a brief, shining moment of my youth. It is about longing transformed into comfort, about regret reshaped into warmth. It is my mind’s way of saying: “Here is beauty. Here is resilience. Here is the life-giving presence of Tahoma and the strength of the firs. Here is your chance to feel good inside.”

(BTW, the vehicles pictured in the carport are the two I wish I'd never sold or traded in.  More regret.)