Joan Didion has that great line about recounting dreams, that one should only have to listen to the very old and the very young do so in the morning. I'm a restless sleeper and seldom dream, but the night before last I had one so crystal-clear I went to a nearby cafe and wrote about it in my journal for two hours...
Last night I dreamt I was in my childhood home and the entryway had shelves and was very dark, with wood painted over so that it looked very heavy. I took the shelves down and began carefully to peel away many layers of wallpaper, although some of them were pretty I kept going. Eventually I had taken it down to the bare wood, and it had a rustic elegance that was stunning. There were only flecks of light blue paint left here and there, little finials and ornamental details I had never seen before revealed themselves and there was light everywhere –– shining from overhead and through the floorboards. No one liked what I had done, it was too altered from what they had known and not polished enough in its new state, but to me it was the most beautiful thing. I could see it as it truly was, without artifice or distraction. Most of all, it gave me hope and confidence that eventually I could restore the rest of the house with my own hands.
When I woke up I was stunned by how detailed and process-oriented the dream had been. I was aware of time passing by, and how purposeful my actions were. I am reading two books for pleasure right now that fit in with this on the earthly plain: one on applying a zen outlook to life, and another on the importance of technical skills in modern life. The latter, Shop Class as Soul Craft, is deeply resonating with me right now. While I am boundlessly grateful for my mental acuity, which makes so much possible in my life, I am also becoming more engaged with the idea of being grounded in the physical world. It's all work, and I've always been attracted to the old-fashioned, in every way.
Sometimes I think about taking a half-year off or more, and doing something like going to Finger Lakes Massage School to build different skills. As I've discussed many times at Lux Lotus, my ideas come from everywhere and the more in the world that I am as opposed to in my head, the higher the quality of outcomes.
For now, life is in New York (even as I post this from Maryland), and although I don't miss it per se, there is much for me to return to there, now. Instead of traveling at length this summer, I plan to spend more time enjoying my apartment and fashioning the kind of home that I've spent my whole life wishing that I could find.
As with all big steps in life, they start small, and the path is made by walking. Perhaps I'll start my next journey by learning how to play the guitar, and seeing where it takes me from there.
[guitar–– $215 from Gibson]
Previously: My True Love Gave to Me.
Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - often appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.
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