LOST

Dear Harry,

I woke three times last night, each time from one of those long, seemingly endless and compellingly real nightmares--and each time exhausted. I don't remember all the details--I should have sketched out the story after waking--but the theme of each was being lost and unable to find my way home. Two of them, I think--well, one, at least--involved a cell phone that refused to obey the usual commands. Someone had been fooling with it and I could not email, could not text, could not make a call to tell Ellie that I was alright, even though I had not yet been able to find the way back to my car and it was two o'clock in the morning. And two at least involved endless walking, walking, walking through strange streets and neighborhoods, unfamiliar landscapes--or scenes that had that worrying air of familiarity that you know very well but can't quite place. Which explains why I woke up exhausted. In one, I remember casting myself to the ground in utter despair, in front of a group of people I knew I was supposed to lead. I must have walked twenty miles in my sleep...

As a good Freudian yourself, I've no doubt you'd have good interpretations for my dreams. For me, the most obvious way to understand them is in the context of a letter I wrote just the other day, the one about the feeling of being lost in my adopted country, of feeling disconnected--"unmoored," I think, was the way I put it--and misplaced. No longer being "at home." 

Well, now it's Sunday morning again, Harry, and again I won't be going to church. I will, though, be going to Disney Hall for a concert this afternoon, and that's church enough for me. I'll have ample time for reflection while the orchestra does its stuff.

With love, as always,

Peter