dreams

I’ve been having some pretty spectacular dreams lately. And no, this is not due to a recent interest in narcotics. Last night, I was on a cross-country road trip with my family and I remember looking out the window of the car and seeing first rows and rows of big, leafless trees in front of a magnificent orange sunset, and then this green, green mountainside with fluffy, celestial sheep that could have been in a Pixar movie. I tried to take pictures as we drove by with my cell phone, but the 1.3 megapixels just couldn’t do the scenery justice. Then, on a completely different plane, I discovered that my old friend and jimbae player, Sarah, was actually this world-class middle-distance swimmer. I found this out because I was in this bookstore (perhaps the BYU bookstore) and I saw a book about her there, with close-up pictures of her swimming and everything. Then the other night, I was with my friend Katie in her cool attic apartment (which I have never seen before in real life, as Katie does not live in an attic) and she was showing me this book about Russian and other Slavic art and it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I remember the colors being very, very vivid, and how I just wanted to CRY the pictures were so pretty.

Anyway, I wonder if as I am pretty much starting my life completely over (at least superficially), these strange dreams are really my brain subconsciously trying to make sense of things and adapt. Think about (literally) jumping into the deep end of a pool after being out in the sun for a long time. You don’t know how cold the water is, you have only kind of learned how to swim over in the shallow end where you can still stand with your head above water, you’re comfortable and mostly dry at this point, but you know that regardless you have to jump. You can’t not. You know the feeling. The heat is making you uncomfortable anyway. So you jump.

…and THEN the rest of you has to catch up with that conscious, decision-making executive part. You feel the cool water on every square inch of skin and take into account your quickly diminishing supply of air. You realize that you’re sinking to the bottom. You can see the sunlight and trees through the wet, crooked lens. The rush of jumping, though, is still making you feel quietly, glowingly proud of yourself, and that is what you notice the most.

This is kind of where I’m at right now. Transplanting oneself is not a walk in the park. Hardly. I made the executive decision. Now I just have to get the rest of myself caught up with me.

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