I dreamt of dead fish again. This happens sometimes, typically when I’m stressed. I’ll be traipsing along in a dream, not a care in the world, when I’m suddenly confronted with a tank of dead and dying fish. They die in different ways, but it’s always devastating and unexpected. It’s been a recurring dream for some time now, and I don’t think I’ll shake it anytime soon. But this current iteration of dead fish reminded me of a piece I wrote a couple of years ago. A lot of new people have arrived since then, so I thought I’d share it again.
My dreams have always been vivid. My friends hate when I start a sentence with, “In my dream last night…” because they know it will be strange. Lately, I’ve been writing down tiny summaries of my dreams, poetic remembrances of experiences beyond words.
*
I dreamt a caterpillar crawled out of my mouth, taking all my hopes and dreams with it. Resting on my lip, it transformed into a butterfly. I wasn’t sad when it flew away. I was free.
*
I dreamt of fish swimming around with no heads. I neglected them, but they did not die. They adapted, like their brethren in the farthest depths of the ocean. A head is only helpful if you need to think.
*
I dreamt I had paper skin, birch bark thin, that glowed softly in the moonlight. A half dozen women gathered around me, drawn like moths to a porch lamp. I whispered to them of home, and we gathered together as coyotes cried in the distance.
*
I dreamt in black and white, unusual. I sat on the edge of a tiled pool. All around me, things unseen murmured in the pitch black. I picked up a penny from the bottom of the pool. It whispered the wish of the boy who tossed it. I picked up another, and it whispered as well.
*
I dreamt of live oaks, alive in my mind. They picked me up in their gnarled, sprawling branches. They cradled me in their ancient arms. Around us, the air was heavy, like the hot breath of some great creature panting in my face. Breathing felt like drowning. All the while, the crickets chirped, a chant that never ceased. Below the droning hum, the oaks whispered secrets I could barely hear. Why do dreams always whisper?
*
I’ve always relished my time spent dreaming. Dreams feel infinite, unbound from the rules of the world. Perhaps they offer clues to breaking those rules, but they slip away with the darkness when we open our eyes. I wonder what else disappears when the sun rises. Magic gets caught in our eyelashes, and we wipe it away like it’s nothing. How much do we fail to see simply because we do not understand?
Tell me your dreams. I want to know what you see in the dark.
WEEKEND POTPOURRI:
Currently on repeat:
This is a wonderful read for anyone who loves T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” And if you aren’t familiar with the poem, you should acquaint yourself with it. It really is wonderful.
A poem:
CALLING THINGS WHAT THEY ARE
By Ada Limón
I pass the feeder and yell, Grackle party! And then an hour later I yell, Mourning dove afterparty! (I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the afterparty.) I am getting so good at watching that I’ve even dug out the binoculars an old poet gave me back when I was young and heading to the Cape with so much future ahead of me it was like my own ocean. Tufted titmouse! I yell, and Lucas laughs and says, Thought so. But he is humoring me; he didn’t think so at all. My father does this same thing. Shouts out at the feeder announcing the party attendees. He throws out a whole peanut or two to the Stellar’s jay who visits on a low oak branch in the morning. To think there was a time I thought birds were kind of boring. Brown bird. Gray bird. Black bird. Blah blah blah bird. Then, I started to learn their names by the ocean, and the person I was dating said, That’s the problem with you, Limón, you’re all fauna and no flora. And I began to learn the names of trees. I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.
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Your dreams sound magical. Lately mine are full of anxiety and I wake up in a sweat.