How Dreams Come True
When I dream a little dream of me….Spoken Word
I had a dream. It was my dream. I dreamt it.
I dreamed that my hair was kempt,
then I dreamed that my true love unkempt it.
~ Ogden Nash
I had a dream, too. Just this morning I dreamed I was carrying my essays, light as meringue clouds, in a knapsack over my shoulder, floating me off the ground, not weighing me down at all. From the glass walls I could see inside, lovely people sitting around wide tables, writing their dreams and turning them into clouds of edibles, to feed and nurture all who chose to come by and partake. How happy I was to be here, ready to walk through the door, taste what was at the table, offer my humble clouds of love filled meringue, share in the feeding community.
With some effort I found the door, a dark door, not easily opened. The door was more than heavy, unopenable it seemed. Locked not, no handhold to grasp, no knob to turn. Found my way in, only to find no table behind loaded works of edible art, but a giant room, a ginormous room, with knee high cubicle walls…making them fall, the young people all running to write without ache, not simmer or bake the thoughts in their cake. Like the floor of an infinite stock exchange, littered with the unwritten truths of the trade. Up on the wall, giant post-it notes with subjects and themes, prompts and schemes…colored squares with scribbled logos…large faceless men shouting “You! Write about this.” Scorned women screaming “You! Which subject do you pick?” “There is no pulitzer people, just pick what happened in the news today, who is the influencer — which celebrity, what makes you really angry, leaves you hungry for more?”
I stood unshaken, my clouds beginning to melt, as young people, younger than children I have raised to adulthood, screamed and ranted about changing habits, and titles, and subjects to write about…prose and poetry.
Who let you in here? Where’s security?
Steady I stood, not giving an inch as they pushed and shoved the air around me, letting the words flow in me and flow through me, like the fear that I will not fear, remembered my dear, Frank saying through Paul’s mind…repeating to myself, ever louder… I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
There was no magic silence, they stormed on, louder and louder it seemed until somehow I beamed out of the room to float above, finding love in my cloudy meringue, letting it melt over them, over them all, dripping whether they would have it or not, some so annoyed at having to clean up my drool, some saying I was not here to school, taking orders for writing by rules made up by those using others’ writing as tools… Put numbers in your titles, make everything a question, gray up the subtitle! Everything should match, everything must shout, make this short, cut that out! Everything must scream….. but this was my dream…
Deep breath in hand, I pulled myself up like a weightlifter with 200 pounds on shoulders, slowly dropped the boulders of someone telling me what I must write, how I must present it…taking their privilege to exert their opinion, turning years of my pain and recovery into clickable bait…no, wait…this is not about what I drank or ate, this is how I survived, not to let you tell me now how I must behave, I do as I please, have signed no lease. I write because I cannot keep the words captive, love to write, I write as easy as I breathe, sometimes to feed with speed what others read, not writing to appease. I write because I want, no money changes hands, no limits are breached.
When I awoke, the dream was true. Nothing I had seen was new.
The room was filled with asterisks. The playground was a slum.
I write when and what I please. I am not attached to the outcome.
