The following text, written by Michael Murray, was inspired by the accompanying 2020 painting by Nancy Friedland:

Yes.

It’s a recurring dream.

Sometimes there are minor variations, but it always follows the same essential path.

It’s late at night and I’m alone, walking through a forest. Everything is dark, shaded with green. I can smell the earth, the sky– water in the near distance. I’m aware that I’m looking for something, but I don’t know what it is. I hear a movement. It’s a woman. She’s naked, her body pale, almost luminous in the darkness. We look at one another. Her eyes deep and familiar, warm. She smiles like she knows me, like she was expecting me, then turns and disappears into the brush. She is clear water rushing over stone. Every atom within calls me toward her.

I follow the sounds she’s making as she cuts through the night. I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt happier, more known. And then everything goes quiet and I know she is waiting for me. That she has always been waiting for me. I push aside some dense growth and in front of me, on the other side of a narrow stream, is a deer. She is looking at me, her eyes glowing in the night. The only thing I can hear is the sound of my heart beating. And then I wake up.