Do you believe in coincidence?
What is memory?
I love when the arts cross over into the metaphysical! I waver a little in my opinions (belief may be too strong a word) about coincidence, chance, serendipity. It was a lovely coincidence that this blog prompt appeared the same day I was scheduled to read with several of my poet friends at Poetry Hickory, a monthly event held at Taste Full Beans in Hickory. After the two featured poets Tim Peeler and Keith Flynn read, some other writers and I read our poems included in issue one of Bud Caywood's time chapbook Bloodshot.
The book, which sells for $5, was produced to help raise funds for the Bethlehem (Alexander County) Public Library. Caywood decided to publish a book small enough to mail for regular postage. The theme of this issue was DREAMS.
Before submitting my poem "Midlife Dreams," I ruthlessly edited it, cutting out the first couple of stanzas because, as I pointed out during my portion of the readings, "No one really wants to hear your dreams. Not the real ones. Our dreams are only interesting to ourselves." I know I may have overstated my case, but I sincerely believe we only pay attention to others' dreams when they are like our own.
I discovered, for example, than my sister Emily and I share a strange recurring dream: We both have dreamed more than once that our contact lenses are gigantic. We have to fold them and force them into our eyes.
Most of my dreams represent my most common worries--being unprepared, for example. I spend countless night trying to find something to wear (usually for my wedding) or trying to get my hair dry (not usually much of a problem in real life). Probably my most common dream motif if my trying to get a phone call placed. Sometimes the room is dark and I keep hitting the wrong keys. Sometimes I am using a touch tone phone and the keys keep falling off like Chiclets.
I think our subconscious works best during dream time. I know I solve problems, plan brilliant lessons, put to rest worries. In dreams, I reconstruct places and memories--my childhood home with my grandparents' back yard. If my dreams are art, they are a collage, with layers upon layers of varying opacity.
Sometimes though I just dream I'm at back at elementary school naked. No one has noticed. Yet.
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