She carried a soiled queen-sized bedspread.  I noted magenta and blue paisley swirls.  At one time, the bedspread must have been lovely.  I noticed it was still quite puffy, and it probably had never been washed.  She carried a large ziploc bag that was stuffed with her belongings--probably everything she owned.  The bag was smudged with fingerprints.  Her eyes reflected pain and anger. She yelled obcenities at me.  I dared not go close to her as she stated she would hurt me.  She threatened to hurt herself.  "What do you want me to do?  I'm homeless, somebody beat me up.  I don't have anywhere to go," she screamed.

The other night I dreamed.  It was a dream for my daughter who had just turned 31, and I sensed the message was for me as well.

 In the dream, my daughter's husband came to her and said, "I offer you Nutella Friendship." (Nutella is a deliciously smooth chocolate spread with hazelnut flavoring).  Then I observed my daughter sitting on a bicycle.  She was not pedaling, but rather sitting on the seat balancing perfectly and performing very intricate and specific arm, hand and feet motions. 

Sometimes I question if I'm headed right in my life.  I feel confusion, espeically when life isn't like a "connect the dots" kind of endeavor--when it's not linear.  I want it to be, but my life is not like that.

My life is a concoction of struggle, joy, infirmity, rigor, beauty, much uncertainly and intermittently sprinkled with delight.  The pathway is not always so simple to determine.  This road has its lovliness and its barrenness and austerity.

Orange:  (+) perseverance: (-) stubbornness, strong willed--Description of the color orange on the Streams Ministries International dream symbols card.

Sometimes I park on the eighth floor of the garage at my worksite and climb up and down the stairs in an attempt to get a little more movement for the day.  That morning my foot hovered on the top stair of floor six, and when I looked down to grab the railing, I saw there on the next step down a perfecly shaped orange.  I was sorely tempted to pick it up and put it in my lunch kit. 

Giovanni left for Italy yesterday.  He has lived now in the United States with me for over ten years.  He is still not used to it--the southern accents, the guns, the wide spaces.  He goes home several times a year to regroup, see his family and eat the foods he loves.  And when I take him to the airport, I always handwrite a letter to him to read on his flight.  It is a tradition we have, as before we married, he commuted back and forth to the United States when he lived in Italy. (Read our story in An Ocean Away).