Shaking without Purpose
I have a snow globe with the Eiffel Tower
inside it. The globe sits on a green table — like a
Wish — waiting in an off-stage green room to be
escorted onstage, to the sounds of
applause. The audience awaits tales of my
adventures: the trip to my dream-city,
through which I float, in my sleep.
Paris, for me — ever since, always, and still —
a recurrent Dream, while I move in and out of
consciousness. My dreams, so clever: they make each
night’s trip to Paris more tangible and real, more
detailed than the last. My snow globe
sits in a room of my house, a room I’ve bathed in
Francophile-glory: Fleur-de-lis, Eiffel Towers,
pictures of Paris, all done in green and gold. I feel
compelled to shake the globe and watch the fictional snow
glitter, flurry, cascade through the orb — the
miniature world, holding the symbol of my
trip-of-dreams, my Dream Trip. Without me to
shake it, the snow globe is just a water-filled
glass ball, with a tiny symbol of the
pilgrimage to an elusive, mystical shrine.
Just like my room is decorated top-to-bottom with
symbols of the monuments in a city I will never see.
Just like there are no hands big enough to shake my
French room and wake me from my illusion.
Just like I finally have the means to go on my Dream
Trip without tripping myself up in a dream.
Just like my body and mind stop me with a reality-
shake: Forever in a room of green, and no
audience to enthrall with tales of the adventure
that will never be. The producer said I must manage my
expectations, but it didn’t make getting cut from the show sting-
less. Shaken from the starry line-up, my limbs do not
rest; my body shakes the dream away, like hands-on
shoulders. But the hands are inside me, clawing to be free
shouting wake up, wake up, it was only Your
Dream. I wonder if I called out in my repose, and what — if
anything — tripped off my tongue just so, that my
whole body was enlisted to shake me awake? A snow
globe’s Purpose is to be shaken:
allowing an illusion of a different life to
float around the globe’s tiny, glittering world.
I visit my French room often, wondering if I
ought to, perhaps, shake myself free of the
illusion that one day, I might board a plane and
fly across the sea. Upon arrival, I’d look up at the Parisian
sky — spinning, open-mouthed, arms wide — waiting for
silvery-glitter-flakes to sprinkle down upon the French
beret on my head. I’d savor how the white, sparkling
flakes are not cold. I’d believe my shivering limbs had
finally stopped, giving me permission, and a few more
moments of rest: my still body’s Purpose, of course — my
eyelids, closed, yet my mind’s eye, wide open — would be to
allow me my dreamings until all the tiny,
glittering hopes tumble, settle, to
ground. Upon arrival, back to my head, back in my
bed, back in a body, writhing, throbbing, screaming, and
shaking me — none-too-gently — awake. Time to
face mourning another morning, one only I
have the power to imbue with Purpose.
Like shaking my snow
globe, imagining the echoes and
aromas — dreaming of what the
air must feel like
under that
wondrous
tower of iron.
— J.A. Carter-Winward
Corners of My Mind: a Memoir of Sorts
