Of Breasts and Bones and Burrows

I've been having a reoccurring dream since last Spring. In it, I have an infant girl with a dark mass of hair and bright blue eyes like my husband. Each scenario is different and insignificant, really, but the baby always looks the same. Every time, I lean over her, encasing her somewhat with my body, and bend foward, naked, poised for breastfeeding. The dream is so affecting to me that I can nearly always feel the twinge on my left nipple. It seems like it really happened. When I wake up and realize it wasn't real, I cry a little bit. It always seems like my protective nature kicks in for this imaginary entity, and when I'm awakened from that image, I feel like a failure--like I wasn't able to do what I was supposed to do.

For days afterward, I can't get it out of my head. It's been about five days since the last time I had the dream, but I'm writing about it now in hopes that it will go away--the memory of her, that is. Sometimes I feel like my brain only holds onto things long enough for me to pen them, and then I'm free from the task.

I'm in the middle of writing a chapter for my dissertation. This one deals with the male literary preoccupation with the Southern sister. Her body becomes like a landscape that can be placed up for public auction and or regulated so as to remain unchanged. All of the plowing of that Southern soil cannot amount to the digging and prodding, or, lack thereof, that surrounds the body of the Southern virgin.

If anybody wants to talk about it, come on over. I'll brew some coffee.