Vicksburg hills

Sandy and I are driving through the hills around Vicksburg, where we lived for five years. In reality these gently rolling hills are covered with nondescript pines and scrappy hardwoods where they're not plowed for fields. In the dream, though, they are exquisitely beautiful--irregular, peaked, plentiful, covered with thick vegetation that is shaded every variety of green. They have the grace of a Chinese landscape painting. We drive through them, getting a panaromic view as we crest the highest. The light is warm and ennobling.

The scene shifts to the city itself, where I walk through a middle-class neighborhood. I see a lion in the near distance outside someone's house. It is tawny and large, imposing as it paces below a window. The door to the house opens and someone comes out on to the porch. They see the lion and go back in.

I'm in a second story apartment, where Sandy and I apparently live. I look down into the back yard and see the lion that I saw earlier, which is female, as well as another one, male with a hugh mane, both pacing around the small backyard. I'm a little uneasy but not too nervous.

Now I'm in a coffee shop in downtown Vicksburg. I sit down at a table where DB is sitting. I haven't, in reality, spoken to him in several years. His normally long red hair has been cut to a near crewcut length. He has his chin on his hand and seems distraught. I ask about his wife. He works in her art and framing shop. He says that they're not doing well, that she has been giving him bad work evaluations. He weeps.

We are in his apartment. His wife is there, as well as a little girl who I learn is his adopted daughter. She is playing with some kind of unusual toy--a tablet of some sort. His wife is filming her with a videocamera. She and DB don't speak directly to each other.