In my dream I’m excited to see my high school art teacher again but embarrassed because after all the years I haven’t returned the set of keys I have to her apartment. We trade COVID stories in the midtown restaurant when her husband shows up and wants to fight me. He’s ludicrous. I talk him out of it.

In my dream we are researching the past of the dusty toy store, crawling across the upper shelves, thinking about how it looked in the 40’s. A young woman keeps jumping towards the ceiling in the dim light, trying to slap price tags on balloons with a gun.

In my dream Suzanne and I are walking back through downtown from the last session of the conference. She compliments the drawings in my sketchbook, even as she wanders towards the auto parts shop.