And then just like that...

And then just like that, life is worth living again.

It’s sunny today. So very sunny. So very nice. I little bit windy for my taste (and my tresses) but otherwise, perfection. I can hear frogs and birds outside, and it’s a delightful 68 degrees out, with just a few cloud. It’s my favorite temperature right now - somewhere between 55 and 70. I don’t like it much hotter, and any colder and you have to wear a jacket and the out of doors doesn’t feel quite as delightful. Illinois is always too windy... it’s simply never still. I appreciate the stillness more than this state allows me. But for this feeling right now, I can stand a little wind.

I had a great dream yesterday morning that made me feel about 85% better than I had been feeling. It was like a brain purge. Very realistic, and nothing but pleasant. I dreamed I was at a party with a couple of people that I had been very much wanting to see. I spent a lot of time talking to, hugging, and dancing with one of them in particular, and it was someone I’ve been desperate to be talking to, hugging, and dancing with (which is funny because I don’t dance). So, thank you, brain of mine. I woke up feeling like I’d had fun all night and everything was right the next morning.

Then this morning I had another dream that included the same person. This dream was about something entirely different (me not being prepared for a massage due to some impending out of state move), but at one point I went into another room, sat down, and randomly started talking to this person who magically happened to be there. We chatted and laughed and shared music and book recommendations. I played with his hands, and wrapped his arms around me, and he didn’t seem to mind. Then I told him I was going to tell my clients that they had to reschedule, since today’s massage was obviously not going to work out, and he was in the rest of the dream, in the background, waiting for me. I woke up not long after that, but it was still very nice. I mean, just really... really pleasant. Fun.

This happens to me very rarely - I will end up thinking about something so much that I inevitably force my brain to have these odd, very realistic dreams about the subject. Almost like I’m projecting myself somewhere else in order to get what I really want. They’re honestly so realistic that I can never quite convince myself that it didn’t happen. As in "Yes, I had a real conversation with this person, because I summoned the real them into my dream." Some day I will find out if the other parties that show up in these types of dreams have also had similar dreams in which they’re talking to me (or in most cases, talking to some girl they don’t know, or have only met a couple times in real life). It’s just so very real. If I had casted a spell demanding an audience with a certain party and then I had one of these dreams, I would only have to believe that my spell had worked.

Anyway, I had that dream this morning, woke up and wrote it down, then immediately went outside to take a walk. I wore jeans and a tank top and left my hair down. The sun made my shoulders and face warm. On my walk I passed a running stream where there was a giant blue crane that must have been five feet tall with it’s neck extended, fishing along the water’s edge. A blue jay flew right past my face. I watched some people playing soccer. I watched the rolling water. And then I considered walking to the graveyard. I didn’t know how muddy it would have been trying to get out there, or how much traffic I would have to dodge, so I didn’t do it. But I have to say it - days like these really make me want to go walk around in graveyards.

Somehow I remember feeling my best on sunny days like this when I’m walking around in graveyards. It’s the only place where I won’t have to see people. Not living ones. :) And I can look at dates and names and imagine life stories and imagine what the land looked like a hundred years ago. I really want to walk out to the giant boulder I found in the woods near the highway last year, commemorating the first log cabin built in the county. I like to think about that place too. But I wish someone was with me.

Maybe after I grab a shower I can drive out to Archer Avenue and enjoy the hundreds of graveyards and parks out there. I keep considering finding an apartment complex out that way to move to because I just feel so damned good out there. I’d spend every day in the graveyards and the woods, and I’d spend at least one night a week sleeping in various haunted locations, waiting for ghosts. It makes me feel happy and complete just thinking about it. But I don’t know about the people out there, and it’s kind of far away from all of our jobs, so I’ll probably never get to live out there. But I’ll still go there on sunny days and misty nights and feel just right.

I know tonight I’m going to be antsy. Whenever I feel good like this I end up getting a craving, nay an absolute NEED, for creativity. I get this desire for catacombs and hidden doorways and stories. I can’t tell if I want to write a story or draw a picture or make a sculpture, take photographs, or make a whole damned movie. I know what I really want is for everything I’m imagining to happen around me. I want to dress up and find my story and live it. I want to be immersed. And since that won’t happen, I just have to summon it there, by creating it myself. Unfortunately I never get to do anything with these creative urges. Well... almost never. I’m usually alone and no one will help me, and I don’t want to end up getting into trouble by driving out by myself to somewhere forbidden. And even if I did, who would I end up telling the story to?

I feel like I’ve lived lifetimes before, because of all the things I understand and desire. I am old beyond anything I should be, but only behind the voice that comes out of my throat. I always have this sense of recapturing some amazing time that I had long ago, only I’ve never had amazing times like the ones I feel inside my head. At least not in the last 27 years I haven’t. In my head, I live inside stories that haven’t yet been written, movies that haven’t yet been made. Or were made very, very long ago. But I don’t have anyone to share it with or to help me pull the good times out.

Days like today are timeless and fleeting all at once. Like a portal to infinity that will ironically only exist for a passing few hours. I am forced to wonder if anyone else ever feels this kind of "happiness" the way I do, or the same sadness I feel when I am trapped without this feeling, alone in crawling seconds, endless boredom and banality. I think I’ll take a shower and dream some more.


(Originally posted on April 5th, 2008)