Wandering While Wondering: A salty dream

I am not sure if I actually woke up this morning. I stretched and grabbed my basket and some funny colored money and went out onto a narrow pink street. There were no cars or people, just a little road made of stones that declined just enough to draw me comfortably down it. I popped out onto a little boardwalk with a merry go round and children playing on strange shaped swings. Behind them, a sparkling bright blue ocean lapped against a pebbled beach and brushed its soft shoulders against a menacing wall of stone at the base of several tall towers. I walked along the wall with the a content and sleeping ocean on my right. A fig tree stretched out from the ancient wall and at places large rocks emerged sharply from the bricks and morter. It was as though the cliffs were slowly pushing their way through.

I crossed an arched wooden bridge and watched a little boy standing by bobbing red boats. He held a string with a piece of bread tied to one end. Tossing the string out into the shallow clear water a shimmering school of fish followed the bread in swirls and clumps. They looked just like the magnetic flecks on an Etch A Sketch, pulled to your pen as you drag it across the surface.

I walked into an open area with a market. Men stood behind fresh fish on ice, with long curled mustaches and deep thought wrinkles between their eyebrows. Whole legs of pigs hung by the hooves, wheels of cheese were split open with flesh the color of cantaloupe. Piles of figs and small bright red strawberries covered the tables. I filled my basket with fruit and nuts and returned home to eat a plate full of these little treasures and whole sheep's milk yogurt.

With a content heart and belly my dream went on. I wandered back through the streets, past an old stone church and down to a beach hugged by the church walls on one side and another stone wall extending way out into the water like a jetty.

I laid on my back in the warmest sun and coolest breeze. The waters were quiet for me. In the bowl of blue above me just the top of the old lighthouse came into view. As I looked across the small bay, peach houses were nestled amongst the dark green hills. The mountains were so close, I could swim across to them. They climbed steeply up into the wildness.

I walked out into the pebbled shore and my feet sank in deeply. The little sailboats tickled the water. The sea reached my waste but I could still see the fish, nearly a foot long looking at my toes. Then I swam. Out into the harbor, with depths below and depths between me and the shore. I flowed with the water past the church and lost sight of my basket. I swam and watched the horizon. I floated and watched my toes. I spent an eternity.

As I moved back toward the small beach, a boy in a little fairy tale sail boat drifted by me, hand on his rutter. He passed a few feet away. Looking at me for a while he finally said "bonjour"
and off he went into his adventure leaving me to mine.

When I awoke the next day, the little road was still at my door. My upper lip tasted salty and I realized this was not a dream. This was Collioure.