Now and then, I dream I can fly.
It's never easy in those dreams. The best I can do is fly to the treetops and that is with great effort. When I fly, I am a great bird with small wings, never intended for much besides hopping leaps. I'm a turkey, working with every muscle of my body, every single muscle to get off the ground. I wake up sore when I dream I can fly. I'll lie in bed, barely removed from the dream of flight, sweating like a runner.
I feel like that now.
I promised myself that I wouldn't write about writing here, but it's hard not to. I published two books this fall. Marketing my books is complicated and I don't fly easily. I have to work very hard to get into the air. Writing is easy, but marketing is hard. Getting my books airborne takes every bit of muscle in my body and quite a bit of air from my lungs. After readings, I feel as though I've worked out. I'm pretty good at public speaking. I get my audiences to sing then the rest just flows out of me. But it's not just talking in front of people. It's sending queries and press releases and entering contests of dubious value. I want to go back to writing. Writing is more like letting water flow around your knees. It makes me a little wobbly until I let it float me up. I can float forever.
Today, I wondered why I never dream I swim the oceans, the rivers, the lakes. Water is my forte. Ah, yes. I have dreamed I flowed down a river. It was invigorating, crashing, dodging rocks, rolling out of the holes and down the chutes.
I am a sucker for a book with water on the cover. I assume I can swim in those words. Or drown. On Instagram, I follow a photographer of water, Andrew Semark. Just go look at his waves for a little while, just sit with them. Put them on a big screen. Buy prints for your walls. (No, this isn't an advertisement. He has no idea how much I love his photos.) Feel the power and the softness in his waves. I could drown in that softness. I could feel that power.
Water is resolute. If it needs to move, it will move no matter what's in its way, slip through your fingers, fling down trees, carve cliffs, pull a swimmer out to sea. One drop at a time, water changes everything.
"Never underestimate the power of water," Mike once said to the news crew when they interviewed him after a flood dug a twelve foot ditch and piled gravel on the highway six feet thick. I've felt that power. I felt it grab at my ankles as we piled sandbags around that new ditch to save a house and a garage. That water was going to flow. We were lucky we could guide it away from the house. That water rolled concrete blocks down onto the highway. It took three days for the department of transportation to move the pile of rocks after the flood. Never underestimate the water.
Yet, when I'm in the water, I feel so free. My parents called me a waterbug when I was little, a fish. When I was six and saw the ocean for the first time, a wave slapped me out of my father's hands and swirled me back onto the beach. I loved that honest wave. That feeling never left me. Even at fifty-seven, put me into a bathing suit in the water, and I can glide, dive, leap out of the water, and dive back down until I feel the pressure of the water on my eardrums. I am a child again in waves, a leaf in a current, and always that kid with wet shoes after a walk.
Maybe I shouldn't try to fly with my books. Maybe I need to dive deep and swim with them. Maybe I need to find the other fish, dolphins, whales, and urchins instead of trying to connect with birds and stars.
What do you think? Are you a bird flying or a creature of the sea?
I can tell it's past time for me to go to sleep. Dreamy or ridiculous. I can't tell which. But tonight, I want to dream of the depths, to crash into the air then dive back down into the blue, to slap my tail on the surface, to spiral, to flip and roll. I want to feel the softness, the resolution of the water on my soul. I want the water to carry me out, to pull me inexorably along the length of the coast.
I want to ride that wave.
Thank you for listening, jb
It's never easy in those dreams. The best I can do is fly to the treetops and that is with great effort. When I fly, I am a great bird with small wings, never intended for much besides hopping leaps. I'm a turkey, working with every muscle of my body, every single muscle to get off the ground. I wake up sore when I dream I can fly. I'll lie in bed, barely removed from the dream of flight, sweating like a runner.
I feel like that now.
I promised myself that I wouldn't write about writing here, but it's hard not to. I published two books this fall. Marketing my books is complicated and I don't fly easily. I have to work very hard to get into the air. Writing is easy, but marketing is hard. Getting my books airborne takes every bit of muscle in my body and quite a bit of air from my lungs. After readings, I feel as though I've worked out. I'm pretty good at public speaking. I get my audiences to sing then the rest just flows out of me. But it's not just talking in front of people. It's sending queries and press releases and entering contests of dubious value. I want to go back to writing. Writing is more like letting water flow around your knees. It makes me a little wobbly until I let it float me up. I can float forever.
Today, I wondered why I never dream I swim the oceans, the rivers, the lakes. Water is my forte. Ah, yes. I have dreamed I flowed down a river. It was invigorating, crashing, dodging rocks, rolling out of the holes and down the chutes.
I am a sucker for a book with water on the cover. I assume I can swim in those words. Or drown. On Instagram, I follow a photographer of water, Andrew Semark. Just go look at his waves for a little while, just sit with them. Put them on a big screen. Buy prints for your walls. (No, this isn't an advertisement. He has no idea how much I love his photos.) Feel the power and the softness in his waves. I could drown in that softness. I could feel that power.
Water is resolute. If it needs to move, it will move no matter what's in its way, slip through your fingers, fling down trees, carve cliffs, pull a swimmer out to sea. One drop at a time, water changes everything.
"Never underestimate the power of water," Mike once said to the news crew when they interviewed him after a flood dug a twelve foot ditch and piled gravel on the highway six feet thick. I've felt that power. I felt it grab at my ankles as we piled sandbags around that new ditch to save a house and a garage. That water was going to flow. We were lucky we could guide it away from the house. That water rolled concrete blocks down onto the highway. It took three days for the department of transportation to move the pile of rocks after the flood. Never underestimate the water.
Yet, when I'm in the water, I feel so free. My parents called me a waterbug when I was little, a fish. When I was six and saw the ocean for the first time, a wave slapped me out of my father's hands and swirled me back onto the beach. I loved that honest wave. That feeling never left me. Even at fifty-seven, put me into a bathing suit in the water, and I can glide, dive, leap out of the water, and dive back down until I feel the pressure of the water on my eardrums. I am a child again in waves, a leaf in a current, and always that kid with wet shoes after a walk.
Maybe I shouldn't try to fly with my books. Maybe I need to dive deep and swim with them. Maybe I need to find the other fish, dolphins, whales, and urchins instead of trying to connect with birds and stars.
What do you think? Are you a bird flying or a creature of the sea?
I can tell it's past time for me to go to sleep. Dreamy or ridiculous. I can't tell which. But tonight, I want to dream of the depths, to crash into the air then dive back down into the blue, to slap my tail on the surface, to spiral, to flip and roll. I want to feel the softness, the resolution of the water on my soul. I want the water to carry me out, to pull me inexorably along the length of the coast.
I want to ride that wave.
Thank you for listening, jb
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