Dreams of Ocean City

I picked up a book at the library today for three reasons: 1) The title is One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, which is a line in one of my all-time favorite songs (it precedes "five for silver," in case that wasn't obvious). 2) The book takes the protagonist to Ireland, and I've always been fascinated by all things related to the Irish part of my heritage, especially lately. 3) I opened the book to skim over a few pages, and I opened directly to chapter 5, which begins "Ocean City, New Jersey..." At that point I felt it was destined to be.

I've been terribly nostalgic lately, an occurrence I blame primarily on my Facebook addiction and the hours of the day I spend with iTunes on shuffle, listening to song after song that yanks me backwards into various periods of my life. Consequently, my dreams at night are mostly full of people from my past- anywhere from elementary school up through college. They all take place at schools I've gone to, or houses I've lived in. And many, including last night's, take place in Ocean City, NJ- where my grandmother lives and where I've spent much time throughout my life. Ocean City, though somewhere I don't frequent much anymore, being on the other coast at the moment, is still the place that gives me the strongest feeling of home. It was always my happy place as a kid, even through the unhappiest times. And now it is the setting for too many dreams where the ocean comes up and swallows the town whole.

Last night's dream was a happier one. It was a dream in which time and age were fluid things. Where family and friends were one and the same. Where the living and the dead stood side-by-side for photographs on the boardwalk. I woke with an ache in my heart that has followed me around all day. I'm not usually one to be dramatic about these kinds of things, but when I read the narrator of this book describe Ocean City in winter time, I had to close the book. My ears filled with a ringing, and behind it, the far away roar of the Atlantic Ocean. I felt like the wind was knocked out of me.

It's too early for me to go on into any detail about why I reacted so. But it is deeply, terribly significant. And so I am certain I will dream of Ocean City again tonight, and again, and again, and again.