Monday, November 22, 2010
Fresh Writing: The Dream
I wake up. It’s late. I’ve overslept.
I’m in a compact bedroom at an inn on the Oregon coast. It is advertised, “the most romantic place in the world,” only I am at this inn alone. No romance. Just me and a dear friend—a fellow writer. Her name is Anne and Anne is terrific. She’s a mom with kids all grown now. She loves my children and gives the best “mom” advice. Anne is my BFF. Best Friend Forever.
Anne is in her room across the hall. A world away. In her own dreams. Or so I think.
I blink myself awake and overhead the ceiling is made from heavy beams of rough hewn pine. Angles and edges exposed. The construction of this place is such that it feels something like living in a tree house. Exposed wood overhead and on the walls and floors, it’s a forest without the wind blowing through the branches and without pine needles and pinecones. Still, all the wood overhead brings these opportunities to mind.
The windows, at right angles to each other, are like a giant open book and they are also louvered in wood. Morning sun leans through each slat and that’s wrong. It’s supposed to snow, or be snowing and yet that light is bright. It’s like summer light. November.
I blink awake a little bit more and that’s when I remember a dream I had. It was the kind of dream I’d rather forget.
It went like this: The Sun Magazine sent me a letter, via email. (Of course, stamps are so passé. So last week. )
Dear Ms. Lauck: (the letter of my dream began)
Thank you for your submission to the The Sun.
We are so glad we asked you to rewrite the essay titled Catherine.
We hated it the first time and upon your revision,
realized we hated it even more.
It’s truly terrible, more so with your revision.
Thank you for the opportunity to reject this piece.
Best, Sy (editor of The Sun)
I want to be a person who doesn’t believe in the power of dreams. I want to forget I had this one at all. I want to go back to sleep in order to rearrange Sy’s words on the page to say, “we love your essay. We’ll publish it without question,” since these are the words I’ve been waiting to hear since submitting that essay eight months ago.
The nutty and alive smell of coffee invades my internal study of what this dream might mean. Is it prophetic? Is it anxiety? What? What?
Anne is upstairs. She’s making coffee.
I push the covers back and put my feet on the floor.
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