A friend I haven’t seen in years reminded me of a dream we shared in high school. We were going to throw our own ball — ladies would wear long gowns, we would swirl and twirl to waltz music — it would be the next best thing to Vienna.

In two weeks Tom and I are going to Vienna. We’re going to see Suzanne, who’s been studying there all semester. We’re planning very little — we’ll let her show us her world — but there will be music and art and coffee houses and Mozart and Beethoven and Brahms. There will be no dancing — the ball season is in January and February — but that doesn’t matter. Suzanne was able to dance through two of them (see her photo above) and I’m content simply to return to Vienna, which I saw so many years ago.

Dreams are funny things. They never fade away, but they soften with time. They’re replaced with gratitude, I think. And with memory.