Dragon in Stone ~ because Lonesome Dove asked

i have insomnia. i had it as a child, a teenager, and an adult. i sleep fairly light. i think i am always on guard. sometimes i read. sometimes i give in to my imagination that works such overtime hours and get up. Marilyn's Melrose Inn was too beautiful to try and doze when i knew my time there would be so short. Marilyn had collected treasures from years and years of searching or stumbling over all the things she has placed in her inn, her home.

very early one morning, i wandered into the expansive dining room. we had talked about isolation the day before and i was feeling it close in on me as the weekend was coming to a close. i would be going back to my apartment that i am very grateful to have, but i would indeed be going back to physical isolation. not mental because i know how to entertain myself. i know how to sit silently in a room.

i found this dragon. the morning sun was streaming in from a window far across the dining room. in that early silent morning when i was the only one awake, and up, wandering around, it seemed to me that the sun had traveled 93 million miles plus 20 feet to touch this little dragon sculpture that had been placed in this stone. it is an igneous rock. the dragon was created to be a fierce creature moving through its hard, impermeable mass as if it were water.
it took my breath away. he is gold. he is handsome. i got teary.

he was in a hutch in an area that is probably not investigated very often. he is small. those are flower ceramic pots he sits beside. it made me think of my Dragon. my husband. the man and the myth.

so i took this photograph.

my husband was known as a good man whose job took him "out of town" at times. he was a Scoutmaster. and that's all they knew.

i knew him as the Dragon of the Corps. i saw his scars. i knew his stories. i was there the times he woke up fighting a foe from long ago, or last month. i was there when he would get caught in a moment, something in a film we were watching that caused a flashback to a "brother" he could not save.

i knew him as my husband who held my hand and had my back. he kept me warm when i was cold, yes, even metaphorically cold. life cold. he kept my feelings safe and my mind entertained with laughter, his irreverence, and his teasing. he was a very earthy man, tactile, sexual, sensual, and affectionate. we were guilty of mild public displays of affection.

i knew him as my companion and confident. i could tell him things that no one knew. and he believed me. he saw my scars and kissed them as i had kissed all of his. we validated each other.

i also knew him as My Dragon. i saw him confront the demon in my life and teach him the meaning of fear, and the truth that he would follow through with his promise should either my children or i be hurt.

i knew him as my lover. he gave me tenderness.

i knew the man and i knew the myth that surrounded him. he was the Dragon but he was my Dragon and i knew both sides. i knew the man ~ his tenderness and love and search for absolution for the service he gave his country. i knew the myth ~ his emotions shut off as he left for a trip to i never knew where, or if he would come back.

the Dragon is more than a nickname. it is his legacy. protection, loyalty, rule-breaker, fierce, lover, loner, family man. in every dragon i see, i find something of him. i miss him desperately. i need his strength. i want to be the dragoness but my scales are slow in growing. i think exhaustion and worry, strife and sorrow are preventing them from coming in quickly. i am tried. i ache. i ache for him and for relief.

but i am the Dragon's wife and, if i wake up, i will get up, and i will keep going. as much as i am further away from when we last touched, i am closer to being with him again, however time and life and fate plays out.

Dragon in Stone. it is a beautiful image.