Dreamscapes

Chapter 1

 

It’s back to the drawing board.  When I tried to retrieve my novel file over an hour ago the words “corrupted file” blitzed across my screen.  Oh well.  The eternal optimist in me  knew I could write a better more poignant story.  The pessimist in me wanted to burst into tears.  How long would it take for me to be a successful novelist and esteemed author extraordinaire?  I wanted to quit my job, travel around to the last of the brick and mortar bookstores and talk with the fans, one by one, autographing copies of my newest release and inspiring young authors to follow their own dreams.  It’s going to be a while, I surmised.

I seem to be better at starting things than finishing them.  I joined a gym and stopped going.  I found a nutritionist who professed a cranberry water regime and later found myself gorging on Mallow Cup after Mallow Cup.  I added more broccoli to my diet only to find myself throwing out wilted celery and moldy red bell peppers.  I bought an exercise bike and found  myself hanging newly-ironed clothes from its gray handles.  They say it takes fourteen days to make a habit.  I say it takes a lifetime.  

After attending an online release party for one of my favorite authors, my depression dissipated.  Parties are like that.  Who can be down when cake is involved, well virtual cake that is.  Anyway, I no longer was drawn to the headlines of the lawyer mom who strapped her baby to her chest and jumped nine stories to her death.  I no longer went through the motions of getting up in the morning, getting dressed, going to work, coming home, going to bed, and repeating the dreary routine day after day after day.

I am alive.  I actually wanted to get out of bed today.   Despite how shitty things seem to be with the impending teacher contracts, the grimace behind my fatigued body dominates my mood.  Why is it that in the Western World doctors want patients to pop a pill or two or three or even four if one’s ailment doesn’t subside?  I have been sick for a long time and the promised desultory effect of chemicals numbs me even more.  I want to feel, and the party last night changed it all.

Waking up this morning, I was mesmerized by the fleeting images from my dreamscape last night.  There was a train, a row of toilets, a lone urinal, a sink, and a bag of cheddar cheese curds minus the dye that highlighted its pigment.  There also was a bearded man who chided me about not being present in the lives of my children and a sick man whose only panacea was to emerge himself headfirst lowering himself into an aquarium.  There was a chance for renewal as I kept coming back to the train.  But when Nick was asked to speak, I could not hear his Shaman-like words.