On the story around, within, and through the facts
“Please don’t move, Denise. Just try to be still. Help is on the way.” These words came to me in what I was sure must be a dream. I knew this because the words were clear and I knew who was speaking them – a particular teacher at my school who also happened to be the father of a friend. It made absolutely no sense that he would be speaking these words to me in any context I could fathom within my 12 year-old world, so dream it was most certainly. There was also the intense feeling permeating this dream that I must have arranged myself into a very awkward sleeping position in the real world and I very much wanted to relieve that stiffness that becomes pain when such a position is held too long in sleep. If I could only just will my body, through this dream state, to move just a bit… “Oh Denise, please try to lay still. Just a little longer.” As part of the slow process of unpacking the non-essential boxes from our recent renovation, I came across a scrapbook I had started as a t...