A Dream to Live By

I had a dream this morning – something that came to me between bouts of half-woken haze. It was a sudden dream about comradery, as they’re almost always sure to be, and it left me determined about nothing in particular because the details of it weren’t very important. There are too many details that come by us in life, much less in dreams, to appreciate them all. What was most important was the feeling I got. Determination: a dish best served raw, slightly chilled and with a broad fork with which to stab and shove.

When there was a mutual give-and-take between Life and I, things began to fall pandemically into place at a pace that I almost couldn’t handle. It’s like the rush you might get from saddling a cloud; you’re not moving very fast, but the abundance of open space around you leaves you inexplicably breathless. There was a lot to take in, and though there was all the time in the world, it was almost impossible not to want it all at once. But I was determined to the point of sound reasoning, and when I stepped over that threshold, I understood that I would have it all if only I took it slowly.

The details of what I wanted and why I wanted them mattered little in a way which told me it could have been anything for whatever reason. When I had a comradery with Life, that is to say I thought of it as my partner, I realized that I could have all the answers so long as I asked the questions because they were never secret; I could open all the doors so long as I turned their knobs because they were never locked; I could touch every star in the sky so long as I reached for them because they were never beyond my grasp. I just thought they were because no one told me otherwise.

After I realized these things, all sorts of people came into my life wanting me to tell them how I do it. I just told them that I believed it could happen, so it did happen. Some caught on while others didn’t, which goes to show that not everyone can let go of details. I found that, after coming to terms with what I was doing with myself and making peace with the forces that controlled it, the only hard part was to start over from the beginning. This time, awake.