I finished reviewing the blog post I'd written to promote my summer driving tour and was very pleased with the progress. You know the tour I'm talking about. It's the summer road trip I'm calling the Colonial Coast tour.
As I was saying, I finished my writing for the evening and went straight to the bedroom hoping to find that Ms. Wonder had not yet finished her reading and turned off the light because I wanted to wish her a good night before going to sleep myself.
I was pleased to see that her face was still in the Charleston magazine and the light still on but, to my disappointment, she placed the periodical on the night table and switched off the light just as I entered the doorway.
Well, you know the result of abruptly walking from the light into the dark. I bumped into a cat, who voiced his displeasure at my clumsiness, which caused a second cat to become convinced that discretion is to be valued above valor.
He lept from the dresser causing that thing the Brits call a torch to fall on the floor and begin brightly shining into the gloom.
Just another of the many examples of one damned thing after another.
"Imported from Italy," said Ms. Wonder from somewhere in the darkness.
"What?" I said.
"The dresser," she said. "Imported from Italy. Now turn the light on before you break it."
Well, I don't need to tell you that I didn't like the way things were lining up. I'm an innocent man, I thought. I only came in to wish her good night, I thought. And yet here we were nit-picking again.
But taking three breaths and counting backward from 10, I moved beyond the fray and took the proper steps.
"Sogni stellari, cara mia," I said
"Sogni d'oro," she corrected and that started it all again. I could have let it go but I have this deep need to be understood. I'm not looking for agreement, only understanding. It's a character fault probably, but there it is.
"I mean more than sweet dreams, my love; I mean to wish you stellar dreams, star dreams," I said.
"Don't start," she said
"But it's an important distinction," I said.
"Sure," she said, although not with any real fealing. "Like the eye of the needle thing," she said
"You refer to the 'eye of the needle' as compared to the 'eye of a needle,' I said. "A fitting comparison I suppose."
I didn't mean that of course. They weren't comparable at all. A camel can't fit through the eye of a needle. Impossible! A lean camel, however, can fit through the gate in the western wall of Jerusalem that was referred to as the 'eye of the needle'.
"Please," she said, pulling a pillow over her head. "I need to get to sleep."
"I understand fully," I said. "Early to bed and all that." And I meant it but I'd spent some time thinking about the significance of the two blessings and wanted to make sure my intentions of wishing her stellar dreams were understood.
"It's just that sweet dreams are all well and good, as far as they go, but they are limited to the dreams that comfort you like being cuddled in a mother's arms while receiving a kiss on the forehead. But is that all we want from a night's sleep?
"Exactly what I want," she said.
"But sogni stellari, oh my!" I said. "Sogni stellari is so much more. Star dreams are the visionary dreams, the larger-than-life dreams, the dreams that motivate us to our higher calling. We wake, not just to another day but to an open vista calling us to soar higher than ever before. Don't you want to soar when you wake?"
"No, I just want to go to sleep."
"Oh," I said, "well, goodnight then."
"Umph," she said, and then if I have learned anything about her at all, she was no longer with us but drifting somewhere out in slumberland.
Oh, it's nice enough if that's what she wants but as for me, give me sogni stellari y salsa di pomodoro! And I wish you no less, my friend. See you tomorrow and we shall soar!