when I heard the news about edie i was playing freecell on my computer and then i kept playing freecell amd since then i have probably spent about 16 hours playing freecell. and if i keep playijg it maybe that moment will last forever, amd it won’t ever quite be over, or she’ll come back.
i couldn’t sleep that night, so at 1.30am i did my usual thing and got up and meditated. i found my mind unfocused, detached from the present moment, yet not able to grasp at any of the disparate threads running through it. it did start to quiet after a time. and, sitting in the dark, eyes closed, out of nowhere an image came to me. not like the kind of image i could hold in my imagination right now, but an image detailed and bright and clear as daylight. it had the same intensity of a dream only i was wide awake. it was of a scene in a dining hall or similar, with lots of wooden communal tables. there were lots of people but the gaze of a young girl, who was in the center, transfixes me. i did not recognize her at all. she looked softly at me, smiling, as i seemed to zoom in until she was all i could see. there was something about here, maybe glasses, that had the suggestion of a time long passed. and so i assumed, so was she. but i felt strangely comforted, and the image faded. now, i don’t really believe in anything supernatural, but the brain can do some strange things to a person. perhaps it was regulating itself, or perhaps it was meaningless. but i don’t mind entertaining the notion that there was something of Edie in this young girl, there was something of her history and her sadness, and in her coming to reassure me in this moment.