I had another one of my dreams again; the kind that seems so real but it’s only the subconscious working its way through the heaps of information in your mind–and always very telling:

I’m in the lower east side of Manhattan on a sunny day. I’m with a friend (who’s not anyone I know in real life…I always secretly look for these faces on the subway or in the street. I shudder to think what would happen if an apparition became an actuality) and we are at a thrift store. She is holding her newly adopted baby, who is an adorable little pixie no older than 1. My friend is parading around the store bragging about how cute her daughter is while I’m outside on the stoop. (And here is where it stops making sense and enters the dream scheme.)

Also on the steps is a little girl, about 3 years old. Her round little cheeks are speckled with brown freckles of all sizes, tiny red lips, dirty blonde hair cut short with bangs that divide her forehead in half with its straight line; eyes big, the color of the ocean during a storm–that terrifying deep blue; her teeth are so tiny and she is chubby in all the cutest places, like her belly and her fingers (and it’s litle girl chub, not an omen towards obesity); she’s wearing a beige tank top with pastel colored polka dots, maroon corduroy shorts, brown mary janes and those fold over white socks with lace trim. She’s a little dirty, but in no way unappealing. I smile and say hello. She gives me a toothy grin and grabs my hand eagerly. “Where is your mother?” I ask her.

She goes on to tell me that she doesn’t have a mother, that she’s from the orphanage across the street; the same place my friend adopted the baby she’s still showing off in the store. We talk and giggle, her eyes widening every time she opens her mouth in an attempt to keep my attention a little longer. I ask the girl why she’s out here all alone, her answers stabs me in the dream and haunts me now as  type this, “They said no one would want to adopt me because I’m not pretty.” But she IS pretty; probably the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I quickly tell her it isn’t true, that she’s lovely and that I love her and will take care of her. Scooping her up into my arms I push through a rack of vintage t-shirts to find my friend, “I have to take this little girl,” I insist. “They’re telling her that no one wants her because she’s ugly. And she’s BEAUTIFUL.” I was angry with these people and all the love I had was being wrapped around the little child in my arms. I woke up shortly after that. Still feeling like I had to find that little girl and rescue her. (It’s times like these that I wish I was enough of an artist to put what’s in my mind in perfect translation onto the page.)

But the strange feeling didn’t subside after I woke up. I sat up and put on my glasses. On Channel 2 news I’m drawn to the headline sweeping across the television, “Woman raising abandoned joey.” My mind doesn’t compute. They never use the name of a child in a headline? A child with my name no less? And after I just had this awful dream about this little girl feeling alone and unwanted? It was like placing the stamp on a letter about to be mailed; the final piece that brings it together. “Woman raising abandoned joey.” Still a little throw off center by the dream itself, I look to the image on the TV–wrapped in a blanket is a tiny kangaroo.  I roll my eyes and sigh, trying to release some of that tension and fear lingering still lingering…but I can’t shake the feeling that the coincidence is far too powerful to be ignored…or maybe, I’m just an egomaniac.