We got a coating of new snow overnight--not enough to shovel, and no doubt it will melt as soon as the sun comes out, but sloppy for dragging around recycling bins and compost pails this morning. I'll get outside to do those things shortly, but for the moment I am recovering from a dream in which I was seething . . . I don't think I've ever been so angry within a dream before.

The scene was set in what may have been the Harmony house. Certainly the woodstove I remember is the Harmony stove, which two visiting young men decide to disassemble, hiding the parts around the house. When I discover this, I am very upset and tell them they have to put it back together. But of course parts are bent, and nothing will seal right, they are filling the rooms with ash and soot, and as they bumble I become increasingly livid until my anger is nuclear . . . I am transported with fury--

And then I wake up.

So now I am sitting here with my coffee, feeling fury drain from my veins and muscles as one feels hard labor drain away. Pure anger is so physical: the entire body clenches in sympathetic ire. Of course my anger over damage to the woodstove is entirely understandable, whether in dream or real life. In Harmony that stove was life or death. Our daily world revolved around it. So naturally it has entered my subconscious as a vital center. What surprises me more is my sheer hatred of those young men. Mostly my dreams adore young men--as one would expect, given my maternal history. But this pair . . . if looks could kill, I would have blasted them.

And that in itself is an unnerving residue: the lingering sensation of hate.