Dream 4.23.19 4.12 am

Posted on by
Reply

I was at my parents’ house where we grew up. And my dad was there, inside. I was on the back driveway and 2 of my friends who live far away showed up on the lawn confident and happy to see me.

“Hey guys what are you doing here?”

“You told us to come,” Danny said without missing a beat. “Left me a voice mail all about Thursday night. Thursday night was gonna be all this and that.”

My heart leapt with anxiety and affirmation. Affirmation, that my friends had come so far to see me, that if you invite people they actually join you. Anxiety because I’d have to come up with a rockin Thursday night. I didn’t have any recollection of calling them, and this was a total surprise. So instead of saying how reassuring it was they’d come and wanted to hang, I asked Danny if he could replay that voice mail for me because I didn’t remember it at all!

But who cares. This was a good dream and my friends were looking for fun and my company. I got on the phone with a drug dealer and started to hurry together a plan.

Meantime, inside with my father, he warned me to be careful with the dynamite I was building in the driveway. I’d been working on it when my friends surprised me. It consisted of 2 semi circle shaped wedges, filled with what looked like drywall, with grooves in them through which I was trying to fit an aluminum bridge which would connect the dynamite together. Not sure what the plan with that was. But something fun.

Then I was back on the driveway, hanging w my 2 friends again, and the neighbor kids all showed up to join us on the lawn. 12-17 year olds. They had lawn chairs and blankets. They were talking and messing with each other. I figured I wouldn’t notice them too much and they’d feel comfortable staying.

It was great to feel like this. Cool. Liked. Felt warm and pleasant inside. I’ve been excluded from groups my whole life. Took me a while to realize it. Even longer to figure out why. Though on the latter I think it’s unjustified. But that’s how people are. I’m just not the type people pursue to be around come weekends. I usually have to call around and ask what people are doing. And sometimes I’ll get an invite. So maybe this dream is a harbinger of new things to come. For me, for our country, for the way the world feels about us.

Art Institute, Chicago Zeitgeist, 4.22.19 by Guest Writer/Gruff Sensationalist/Self Contradictionist, Al Shannigan

Posted on by
Reply

I was home and alone, restless. I’ve seen the 4 Rembrandt portraits a buncha times. But the 2 visiting from the Simon Norton Museum in Pasadena I haven’t seen in years. While looking for that gallery without directions I created a side tour through the classical European wing where Rembrandt, according to didactic logic, must be housed. This is what is thrilling and boring from the Chicago zeitgeist of today, April 22, 2019!

Edvard Munch’s The Girl by the Window. Such a beautiful side of the artist we’ve pigeonholed with The Scream. That one painted the same year as this comforting little gem. 1893.

Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook by Camille Pisarro 1894/95 is still the best of his large collection here. But the dab/point method in imitation of Van Gogh is boring.

But today, April 22, 2019, is a day when one artist will reign supreme. It started after many many galleries of droll uncaptivating fine art, when this one, it’s stupid blocky simplicity yanked me from across the room.

Who is that? Cézanne!

The Bay of Marseilles, Seen from L’Estaque, 1885.

So elemental! I want it in my living room above the fireplace. That’s a beautiful piece to give pleasure to visitors in my home.

It’s the only one amongst galleries and galleries with any draw. It comes off as simple. Pedantic. Floppy. Clumsy. Which is why it’s so refreshing. The prettiest fresh colors. Two other patrons were deep into conversation about this one just to its right.

The Bathers. 1899/1904

(Why the hell is there a slash in the years I don’t know. Last was a hyphen. Slash seems to say perhaps it was begun in 1899, put aside 4 years, then picked up again and finished in 1904.)

And then a damn tasty looking bowl a fruit.

Then this one. Not Cézanne but about Cézanne.

Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne, 1890 Paul Gauguin

Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings are awkward today, possibly due to me stamping it by the appropriation/his-story debate in our society, but this one got me from across the room.

She looks like a zombie. The still life in the background of the painting Gauguin owned. He said he’d never part with it. Unless by direst necessity. He eventually did. For emergency medical bills in Tahiti. But this woman prefigures Picasso’s African-Indian mask phase. Great nod to Cézanne. A repainting of Cézanne’s still life which Gauguin loved, but marked w his style. The still life a backdrop for another still life, the woman. Like translation by a great artist of another artist’s poem. And so as Gauguin’s best painting of the day features a nod to Cézanne, so Cézanne takes the cake for today.

Light zingy lemon cake. With citrus cocktails on a summer Sunday afternoon in the shade. That kinda cake.

Here’s Cézanne’s woman, in a yellow chair, 1888-1890

Cézanne painted his wife, often in this chair, 30 times in this apartment where they lived with their son, located at 15, quail d’Anjou on the Ile-Saint-Louis.

Without me knowing either were his, in 2 different rooms, 2 separate times Cézanne yanked me from my brisk walk across the room to stop before them. Cézanne, my followers, is clearly the champion of the day.

Whereas Pisarro fails to excite.

Too diluted Van Gogh-esque. And even V.G. himself was regular and uninteresting today. Sure the Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La Berceuse) 1889 caught my attention and made me smile.

Straight outta Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. But today it’s merely hella novel. Not gripping. And people waiting in line to see the fantastic 1886 Self Portrait left me feeling quaint and dull.

And I similarly wanted nothing to do with Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte 1884 or any of his. Once again, infinite “points” not capturing the day’s zeit nor geist.

This is though.

The Walker 1877-1878 Auguste Rodin

So strident. Bold and conquering. Like Ayn Rand’s what’s-his-name, John Galt, defying the striding world. Doesn’t even look like he’s walking! Feet so firmly planted. Fuck walking. This statue is strutting my great big mind.

Monet.

Snooze. Well. I won’t go that far. Every painting in here may it exist with as many others forever. But this one has some snare.

Houses of Parliament, London, 1904

It’s foggy and lost, like us, but with no emboldened flashing statements, unlike us.

We humans are always like and unlike each other for all times. But I think what’s catching today is what’s unpopular and forgotten. Ignored.

Ok. While backtracking can’t deny Van Gogh some time for Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage.

But Pisarro is not the same. Not pleasurable today like Vincent still deigns to be.

But wait! What’s this?

Degas!

Degas Degas Degas!

Green Dancers! ~1878!

Degas!

Degas Degas Degas!

Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys ~1860

Oh my Edgar Degas how exciting you are this April 22, 2019!

Yellow Dancers in the Wings 1874/76

Degas Degas Degas!

And still on the way to Rembrandt…a pit stop with Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes and his 1806 El Maragato vs Friar Pedro de Zaldivia

The attempt

The Friar feint

Uh-oh! The struggle for the gun!

Oh snap Friar’s gonna pistol whip and shoot his ass

See how Friar clowned the mothafucka!?

Ok..Rembrandt.

The Young Woman in an Open Half Door and Old Man with a Gold Chain I’ve seen many times and you can too. They’re quite something. But the 2 from Norton Simon visiting from Pasadena are my reason d’etre today.

Wdyt? 1655-1660

Thats the cutest face on a boy I’ve ever seen! Just made me bust into a happy all out grin. I just stood there in front of the painting grinning this big smiling grin, until I started worrying that the other patrons would think I was planning an attack on the painting so I moved away.

Just try it. Go stand before that painting and see if you can resist a huge smile. The painting evokes it. The boy does.

And here. The master of mind matter and luminosity himself.

Self Portrait, 1631

No doubt. Da bomb masterpieces!

But this April 22, 2019 the spirit goes to

#1) Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

#2) Degas (1834-1917)

The post-impressionists take the day!

Come out and tell me if you agree.

And let’s see how I feel in May, when we’ll cruise to the Driehaus Museum for the Yinka Shonibare CBE exhibit….stay tuned, America, and thanks for listening.

Al Shannigan

Guest Writer/Gruff Sensationalist/Self Contradictionist for jedediahsmudge.com.

The First 438 Hours I Deleted My Facebook Account

Posted on by
Reply

• My girlfriend said she was embarrassed to be seen with me. And that all her friends were going to think she was dating a recluse.

• My mom got 3 phone calls from an aunt, a cousin and a friend asking if I’d died, 16 texts from family and friends asking if I’d suffered a mental health or life crisis, and 1 call from her brother asking if I’d been disappeared by the NSA.

• 4 friends texted me about dropping from “the book,” which led to great exchanges about life and online identity.

• I became an enigma, appearing in photos with family and friends, but as the only one who couldn’t be tagged. Hence, couldn’t be researched or online stalked. People would ask, “who is that guy in your photo?! He’s not on Facebook?” Some wondered if I were a ghost.

• I walked around in the Spring sunshine, taking in the moment.

• At hour 327, my mom posted, “Hello concerned family and Facebook friends. I want you all to know that Jedediah is just fine. He’s in good spirits and healthy as well. He decided he didn’t want a Facebook account anymore. He said ‘the app is intrusive, kitschy, and the design reducing everyone’s identity to a single boring monolith. I’m choosing not to be a digital cookie cut-out on Facebook anymore.’ Jedediah’s father would have supported this I’m sure. And as long as he is happy and safe I do as well. If you want to know how he’s doing you can stop by this Sunday. We’re having brunch.”

• 2 friends unfriended me in real life, claiming I was “paranoid” and cutting myself off from normal society. One said, “If you don’t trust Facebook, I don’t trust you.”

• My girlfriend dumped me. But we got back together after arguing a lot. She has confessed that in many ways she hates the app too. But feels enormous pressure to be on it.

• I’d been aggravated by FB for years, but what pushed me to my decision were 2 things:

1) https://thebaffler.com/salvos/404-page-not-found-wagner

2) 65% of my “friend suggestions” were for pages to Eastern European escort girls. Another 25% were for people from my past who I wanted nothing to do with ever again.

Now. On hour 438. I’m feeling pretty good. In control. Not coerced or smushed into an identity and set of social relations I never wanted. I’m eating a bowl of cereal. Surfing the web. Not seeing what my friends are posting on FB.

And America. I’m doing just fine.

Hesitating…

Posted on by
Reply

Hello, America. I know. I still haven’t had the guts. No. The organization. No. The wherewithal. To launch my Congressional campaign.

Honestly, I’ve been watching Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

God dammit. Right when I thought my Nobody for Congress Platform was right for America, I started following her on Twitter, and damn, every day I like her a little more.

I haven’t cared about politics for 7 years, since…well, suffice it to say, I’ve suffered a bit of PTSD when it comes to politics. I was SO intense, SO involved, turned out I was in what many, including, for the most part, me, would call a cult. Hm. That stings. A blow to the ego. Shakes the confidence. Made me distrust myself. And shrink from all politicians. Especially the superhero types. And no, I wasn’t a member of the Moonies. It was better than that.

But listen. I like this gal AOC, as everyone calls her. I like her brain. It’s sharp, and edgy. I thought I was done with politics, but ya know, I feel like Abe Lincoln in 1854, roused from political retirement by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. I know AOC is not a political law. But she’s firing me up, against my will, making me think politicians can be intelligent, original, genuine, savvy, ironic. So wait. I want you, my supporters, to just hold onto your horses. Jedediah Smudge has a lot of ideas. But he’s gotta recalibrate. He’s wondering if his philosophy of Nobody for Congress, of interminable patience and lack of urgency, is what he stands for.

I still think we’re howling and hollering a lot at each other for no good reason. We put our faith in superheroes. We don’t think, we take a side. But more savants like AOC, on either side of the aisle, that could rip off my PTSD, make me wanna jump in the ring again. But I’m scared. I don’t want to take sides. I’m not so sure we can know the truth.

So yes, America, I’m confused. I gave my heart and soul to a political revolution for 10 years of my life, and it went up in helium inspired flames like the Hindenberg. I want to believe again. Believing is inspiring. But I don’t, because ideology is the end of thinking. And I think we really need to think. Not banter. Argue. Posture. Position. But talk. Communicate. Listen. And think.

Photos, Faith, and Bones

Posted on by
Reply

I was talking last night with a beautiful woman. We sipped shaken margaritas I’d made from scratch, and as the Don Julio Blanco hit our bloodstreams she opened her soul.

“I am from Brazil,” she said, “and in Brazil we are more superstitious than here. There is a man, named Jean of God–“

“Jean of God?”

“Yea, Jean of God, he is a spiritual surgeon. He operated on this boy that I kissed once. He does not cut into you. But he does into your spirit. He performs an operation. And this boy thought, ‘Eh, it means nothing.’ He was totally against it even though his parents wanted him to have it. And the next day, he tried to get up and just go about his daily stuff like nothing had happened, and he couldn’t. His entire body was in awful pain from the spiritual surgery and he messed himself up.

“Now Jean of God, he has been accused now of touching some women inappropriately.”

My eyebrows raised.

“But he like any of us is a human being. But even Oprah went to him to be operated on.”

“Well of course she did. Celebrities are the craziest,” I replied.

“No I am saying this because it shows how well known this man, who operated on this boy from the village I lived in, how popular he became.”

I thought about my comment immediately after it poured from my lips. It wasn’t fair. To categorize celebrities as the most superstitious, or most insane. What did I know about it? If something channeled your consciousness, tuned it during trouble. I imagined Oprah. What must she have been dealing with to decide she’d have a spiritual surgery?

“Have you heard of Condomble?” she said.

“No. What’s that?”

“It’s like Santeria. But Brazilian. An African religion in Brazil.” She recounted a visit to a shaman, or priest’s sanctuary once, where she passed by these shrines, or huts, little temples in the yard, filled and covered with bones. She looked frightened. “It was disturbing.”

“Why?”

“My spirit felt very light. Like it was floating above the ground. It was a heavy place.”

“Bad or good?”

“Bad.”

“Why bad?”

“Because that priest, that God the priest represented, Legba, will do bad or good. But if you ask him to do bad, like against another person,” (I imagined paid-for-hire assassins, but she was talking about spiritual curses or even death-curses) “if you ask him to do bad he will come back to punish you, eventually, like 10-fold.

“This one hut,” she said. “Here let me see if I can find a picture of it. Maybe on their Facebook page, this one hut had all these bones hanging in front of the doorway. And I was so terrified I couldn’t even take a picture.” She wondered as she failed to find any pictures of this shrine. She’d told me about this more than once before. It clearly was an impactful moment in her life. At Salvador, Brazil. “I wonder if everyone is too afraid to take a picture of it.”

Too afraid. In this day and age still. to take a picture of a shrine.

“I mean, the Catholics are even crazier,” she continued. When I went to Rome, I went to St. Peter’s. That place would make me want to go to church even if I weren’t religious. I would go. But downstairs, they had these windows, filled with skulls and bones. Here.” She had posted one picture on her Facebook. “I didn’t post any others, because I didn’t want my Facebook page to be filled with skulls and bones.” She laughed.

The window indeed was chock full, from its tall top to bottom, with human skulls and assorted other human bones. “Those are people who were killed for being Christians.”

“These margaritas are amazing,” she said, taking another satisfying sip. We shared a plate of seasoned ground beef with tomato and onion, and rice. “But these people, these spiritualists, priests, whatever, some of them have talent. And some are evil.

“My aunt has a daughter, my cousin, who was born with complications, she didn’t get enough air while being born, and so, she recognizes me, for example, when I visit, but she does not form words, just makes sounds, has very limited abilities.

“My aunt has always felt terrible. Reponsible. For this. And one time, years ago, this woman promised her that she could rid my cousin of the evil spirits suffocating her. She could cure her. And my aunt got so taken in. She really believed this woman. And paid her $3,000, in Brazil that is a lot of money. When my grandman found out, she was so angry, she wanted to call the police and have this woman sent to jail, but my aunt believed it so much, she opposed that, defended this woman, and was scared that if anything bad was done to her, the cure for her daughter would be reversed, or not come. So my grandma, not wanting to mess any more with my aunt’s emotions about this, just let it be. And that woman went away. But that, I think, you know someone is a fraud, when they are charging money for spiritual powers.

“We no longer live in an age of miracles. Imagine what it would be like to live with Jesus, when he was walking around, performing all these miracles. Or if he had charged money for them? But now, miracles are rare. I guess we are waiting for the salvation to come for us all.”

The Island (of Individual Consciousness)

Posted on by
Reply

We’re all here. I’m used to Pink Floyd. The Rolling Stones. I realize they’re outplayed and heard a million times. That’s part of their charm. The songs of Earth. 

We live here happily on a troubled, bealeagured planet. An island whirring through space about stars. We take everything, especially death, very seriously, even though we don’t know whether death is better or worse. We don’t know anything about anywhere else but here. I don’t know why we’re here, who put us here if anyone or anything at all. I don’t know what makes us be. What our material structure is made of or energized by. And this is nothing new, but none of this mystery stops us. And that seems to be part of the principle behind life. That the unknown is motivating, not demotivating.

I’m amazed by the intricate systems we humanity create. I imagine I’m a traveler to a floating island. A planet I’m visiting. I have the privilege of peeking in, and participating in this mysterious activity of earth. When I imagine this it’s from the perspective of the brevity of my life. I see myself and everything around me as my recent creation as a being and my inevitable, approaching demise. I’m growing. Such a short time to take this all in! What a strange sad wonder this is.

The intricacy of our banking systems, our economy’s divisions of labor. The anatomical and medical knowledge. Our laws, morals, and systems of ethics. And history. How we act as one group in time. Traveling together. Learning from each other, suffering from each other. Inextricably linked to every event from our past. Physics, astronomy, biology, painting, theater, literature, medicine, technology bound together by our historical nature. The miraculous capacity we’re given to remember, record, and build upon a shared past. And most touching and charming of all, love. How we care for certain others. Family of course. But certain strangers we meet, with no ties or obligations at all, and “fall in love” with, maybe end up spending an entire life together until death do us part.

What motivates these things? There are passions, standards of behavior, impulses, feelings, built into us all as a species. We certainly didn’t choose those. We are actors while acted upon. Players while seeming to be played. And where do we go next? Is death really a horrible curse? An end?

I know that I hate saying goodbye. I’ve kept in touch with many of my past lovers for this reason. The ones I haven’t I feel terrible about. It’s a death in itself, to never hear again from someone I once loved dearly, to never know how they’re doing, or what. So death is a sad goodbye to this world we know nothing about, but become so attached to! It’s no different than the attachment I get to a great book. I hate the last pages, and I usually cry at the final word, because the book is over. The story is done. That world is ended.

And so with life. Is it any different? Aren’t I as attached to this life, not knowing whether it’s non fiction or fantasy. Not knowing whether it’s real or an illusion. We are actors. Lovers. Players. We invest so much into this intricate dollhouse of finite space and time. And where do we go? Who shall we be next, when we, when I, this visiting individual, am forced to take my leave?

The Over-Rated Individual

Posted on by
Reply

I. And Thee.

Thou. And I.

We. Me. You. I.

A big deal these days, isn’t it? The last centuries, the I has become paramount. Over the we. The I. It’s the spirit of the age. Selfies, celebrities, fame, fortune. Partnering. Mariage and divorce. We’re all caught up with I. Who am I? Who are you? What is your personal destiny? Your individual calling.

We may be barking up the wrong tree. What I mean is, individuality might be over-rated. Meaning, the actual difference between any two of us, in the grand scheme of it all, might be equivalent to nil.

Are we really that different from each other? Is Trump that different from Bernie Sanders? Or Kanye that different from a homeless man? Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez so different from Tucker Carlson? Or even Leonardo da Vinci so different, in fundamentals, from the dumbest kid you can remember from your high school class?

I’m not so sure. In immediate detail, yes, a rose is different from a petunia in many striking ways. But as flowers, don’t they both reproduce the same? Have similar lifespans. Need the same nutrients to stay alive. Beneath the flashy surface, in the history of all living things, I might say the rose and the petunia are about as close to equal as you can get.

We’re a family, us Homo Sapiens. And compared to the future race we might create. One with memories 1,000 times greater than ours, and collective consciousness that gives any individual a IQ 1,000 times greater than the smartest of us that ever lived. Or lifespans of 1,000 or more years. Physical strength equalling the greatest machines. I mean, will that super race, that next species beyond ours, really care about the difference between Leonardo and the dumbest kid from your high school class? If they can figure out as much about nature and the universe in one school year, as it took all of humanity to figure out over 70,000 years, won’t all of us, from their eyes, be rather insignificant as individuals?

Maybe. Just a thought. Just wondering if all this me me me culture we’re all so obsessed with is just foolishness. Maybe humility, joining the team of the human race, realizing we all have the same underlying structures and desires, needs, wants, maybe humility will be discovered to be a universal principle, a sign of the highest intelligence of all.

On Books

Posted on by
Reply

I’m trying to learn how many books, and which ones, I’ve read in my life. I’m 39 years of age. But this has been a minor obsession of mine since 2015. On Goodreads, I tried to recount and list every book I could remember reading. But it added up to a paltry 258 books. That’s it?! That’s nowhere near where I feel I should be. And as I write this, I’m getting schpilkes thinking that instead of writing this I could be reading another book…

But anyways, do you have a list of all the books you’ve read? How many? How did you recall them all? Is there some method, there must be, in this age, to discover every book. I don’t know. Goals are nice. Reading is a fantastic pleasure. There may be nothing better. Even with a mediocre book, or a storyline you can kind of predict, or a narrative style you recognize from dozens of other books you’e read, there’s something so primordial about lying in bed, alone, late at night, in silence, just running over the words, conjuring the images, in your quietude.

A next generation of humans beyond Homo Sapiens might find our reading thing charming. They might find a lot of our activties quaint and charming. Cute little things we lower-level creatures did to pass our lives, enjoy a moment. But you know, it’s all relative. Experience nor happiness is measured by level of intelligence. We all have our gifts. Snails, flowers, orangutangs, homo sapiens, and the beings of the future, we all have to deal with existence, the sorrows and joys. The unknown of it all.

Yours,

Jedediah Smudge

It’s Time. I’m Launching the Jedediah Smudge Campaign for Congressional Seating of Jedediah Smudge.

Posted on by
Reply

The time is now. Now, America. Now.

We need a third party. Everybody says it. Talks about it. We all know how to save the world. Each of us. If everybody else would only listen.

Well. I’m listening. I’m Jedediah Smudge. I’m running for you. Running fast. Running hard. I don’t know what year I’m going to actually put myself on the ballot. But it’ll be soon. Alright?

I know things are urgent. Well. I don’t believe they actually are. The first premise of my campaign is, it’s not that urgent. I mean, it’s urgent, but it’s not going to be solved anytime soon. So yes, I appreciate and respect my fellow members of Congress who believe they are going to change problems that have existed for 70,000 years in the next election. I know. It might happen. But I’m taking the longer term view.

My campaign doesn’t yet have a name. Help me generate one. The Long Term Campaign. Nobody for Congress. I’ll be batting these around with you, my listeners and cheering supporters.

But I’m going to use this platform, and this patient outlook I have, to develop the ideas that eventually are going to win America back to being patient (see: tolerant) again. I’m going to criticize the morally superior. I don’t like them much. I’m going to ridicule racists and ignorants. Don’t like them much either, but, I’m more sympathetic to them than to the morally superior. I mean it’s a tough call but in this day and age I’d rather spend a day with an ignorant blue collar American than a morally righteous one. And I’m called a liberal by my conservative coworkers. So. Yeah.

But one thing I declare. Today. Right now. At this the launching of the Jedediah Smudge Campaign for a wholly reformed and re-envisioned spirit of America, I declare that I have no party, yet, but, that the morally outraged should form a new party. Let’s ween the morally superior amongst the Republicans and Democrats, let’s separate them out and put them together. The Moral Party. And although the leftists and rightists in that new assemblage will chafe at each other on particulars, the more important unifier they’ll share is their moral superiority over the rest of the American people. And that, for me, is important. You’re either morally superior, and therefore need to be outraged all the time. Or, you’re morally like everyone else, and are just trying to get by and make humanity better whatever little way you can. I, once I decide on my party name and platform name, will be in the latter camp. You can rest assured of that. And my enemies, my rivals, my opposition who will dog me to the end of the dogtrack, shall be the morally superior.

I will use the wrong words. I will make bad jokes. I will display my ignorance of America, by America, to America. I will cajole, gaffe, brandish, and obsequify. No one shall outdo me on campaign gaffes and whoopsies. In other words, I’m gunna be just like you. Flawed, ignorant, insecure, inadequate, inestimable, wronged, offensive, defensive, reactionary, underinformed, but, America, ready to put on my pants suit one leg at a time and take this misguided and hazily focused beam of light to the aisles full of chairs we call Congress.

Thank you.

Jedediah Smudge

Jedediah Smudge Gains His Confidence

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t ever write.  I loathe it, hate it, terrified of it. But last night I had the strangest dream–the most fascinating, strangest dream, and now I think I’ve found my calling–I think I’ve been called to write.

I was sleeping of course, and waking on and off, but this same dream kept returning each time I fell asleep, like a TV program I kept coming back into the room for. In this dream I am writing, and writing very well–the words and the themes of my story are pouring forth without hesitation, and they are fantastic–gold winning stuff! My voice is there on the page! But the strangest part of all–the part which has lingered inside me all day, and forced me to create this–in the dream I can see the words of my thoughts in my fingers! The words I am thinking are appearing not vaguely in the scary shadows of my mind–where I’ve always been so unconfident as to how to find them–but they are appearing fully written, in a kind of dark grey ink, in the tips of my fingers, and like coffee beans from a dispenser they are dispensing their way so smoothly onto the page through the pen in my hand.