I had a dream this morning as I faded from sleep to wake.
I was walking, barefoot, on the grass next to a sidewalk, and enjoying the sensation of my feet on the earth, the dirt between my toes.
I looked up, and at the end of the sidewalk was an old friend, leaning against the pillar of a porch.
He looked the same as he’s always looked, if maybe a little older and fuller than the last time I saw him. Medium height, blue eyes, short dark hair. He’d dyed the longer part on top a blue-green color. Not something he’d be likely to do in the real world, but it looked kind of cool. It gave him an otherworldly presence.
No salutations or preamble; in a dream one can dispense with those and get right to the meat of the conversation.
“It would be nice,” he said, “to be able to write exactly what we want, immediately.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “To have instant writing powers.”
He paused, looked into the distance, then returned his gaze to me.
“But there’s a certain kind of violence in that, in the same way that superheroes who discover their powers in an instant wreak havoc for a bit before bringing them under control.
Better to come by your gifts naturally, slowly uncovering them by writing every day.
At least for old guys like me.”
He gave a sly smile, knowing this last comment would get under my skin a bit, seeing as how he’s a month younger than I am. And it did, a little. We’re not old! Oh wait, yes we are.
I could still feel the grass under my feet as I woke with that phrase in my head, “a certain kind of violence in that.”
And so, I write. Uncovering day by day.
