There was something in the air today. Or perhaps it's there everyday and I only recognized it this morning. Could be it's a seasonal thing, a sudden illumination caused by the Earth tilting during the time of Solstice toward the Sun.

I knew something was in the wind when I approached the 38 Geary stop outside of the Transbay Terminal, as I do most Monday through Friday mornings, and found something I never see on that concrete island:

a line of folks, my fellow commuters, some six or seven people deep, forming a tidy queue.

Usually there is a general spotting of people in this space, vague lines sometimes take shape but melt into impatient mobs as soon as the bus rolls up and opens it's maw for boarding.

Noting, as I am here, the strong and definite form of this queue, I duly took my place at its end, signing my name upon an invisible social contract.

Sure enough, the line held when the bus invited us in and we filed through those doors like civilized beings. A first, for Muni at least. Inside the terminal, on the AC Transit lines, a civil queue is expected and maintained by some organizing force that seems to disintegrate out in the streets of San Francisco.

Except for today that is. We'll see if the line is there tomorrow.

After I found my seat (single, window) and we were on our way up Geary, I realized that another first had occurred much earlier. As I slept, in some dim hour before dawn, I was visited for the first time (in conscious memory, at least) by a blogger in dreams. Like you, I'm sure, I often dream of people I know or have known. This, as I say, is the first time I have ever dreamt of somebody I know only as a blogger. The question of how much I know anyone I have never met in the flesh, or even spoken to on the telephone, is a good one.

The question of how much I know someone after dreaming about them is another, maybe. You'll have to supply your own answers, though, because I'm not tackling either of those questions now.

Instead, I'll tell you that the blogger who appeared in my head last night was Elaine, she of KaliLily Time. Elaine was one of the first on what I would come to call my blogroll just over a year ago. However well I do or do not know her (Hi Elaine!) I am glad to know the bit of her that shines forth from her blog.

Should a seeker not find a companion who is better or equal, let him resolutely pursue a solitary course; there is no fellowship with the fool.

- The Dhammapada, Chapter 5, The Fool, #61 -

This is good advice. This is also why I am glad to know Elaine, as I do, through her blog. She is a wise woman, a wise person, a traveler on this road of life who leaves, in her words, lanterns burning for the rest of us.

The dream in which Elaine featured went something like this. . .

Sarah and myself were packing a car, as for a trip, in the street outside of the house where I grew up from the age of seven - still home to my Dad, Step-mom and brother. It was night, or perhaps late dusk, and there may or may not have been other people present - the dream is tattered around the edges and not all memories are clear. As we worked loading the vehicle, a hatchback of some kind resembling no recognizable "real world" counterpart, Elaine approached us from the house next door or, at least, from that direction. Though, as indicated above, I have not met Elaine in the flesh, I knew it was her immediately and without doubt. She (Hi again, Elaine!) appeared just as she might in any of the various photos I have seen at her blog and, more than this visual identification, there was a general knowledge, common in my dreamtime experiences, that this was Elaine. Joining us at the car, she addressed us and it is here that the dream falls away into that vast blackness behind my eyes, incomplete or unremembered.

The content of the verbal exchange between Elaine, myself and Sarah seems the most important part of this dream, yet it is a mystery because it was speech and sound is not a factor in the memory of the dream nor, I think, a part of the dream itself. This seemed to be a silent vision. None the less, words were spoken, and I unable to read lips.

The general tone of the dream was one of casual amiability and, I think, quiet expectation with the packing of the car indicating travel or departure.

Hmmm, if I could only go back there and write it down. What did you say, Elaine?