Dream

(In response to a passage from The Kiss, by Kathryn Harrison)

It's odd that this trigger was pulled so soon after the troubled dream I had just before waking this morning. In the dream I was with my wife and, as so often in our marriage, we were arguing. This time she presented the most forceful argument and against which I had little defence. Maybe my weak rebuttal was rooted in being naturally inclined to adopt the role of conciliator whenever confronted with conflict? Disputation is emotionally draining. It wastes time and energy in the search for resolution. Barbara, my late wife, always regarded my peacemaking as a weakness, as cowardice! In arguments, one side must eventually prevail, one must " blink first " and, perhaps, be the loser.

This poses the question, is appeasement evidence of lack of moral fibre, of courage?

On the other hand, The Bible offers a consoling argument against this by asserting in The New Testament, (5:8), that " Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

On the strength of that testimony, is it possible to claim, to argue, that our world today would be less violent, less prone to conflict between nations, if, in 1939, Neville Chamberlain had more forcefully argued with Adolph Hitler to convince him of the merits of appeasement, of world peace?

I am not sure what I should be writing about right now. For some inexplicable reason, all I can think about is Susan Boyle singing about having a dream, on the stage of Britain's Got Talent. And I can't write about her.

Dreams... Do we still have dreams when we get older? It is possible to still have dreams when we have passed the halfway point of our life? Halfway point... Where is this halfway point anyway? For all I know, I might have missed mine 5 years ago. 10 years ago! That's the thing, we just don't know. We don't know when it might be the last time we see our parents, our children, a friend. Life is unpredictable and unstable. The only reality is that we should always be truthful to ourselves, and never think, "There's always tomorrow," because tomorrow might turn out not to be an option.

I do this all the time. Guilty as sin. Put this off, and that off. Plenty of time to travel when I am older, blah blah blah... What if my heart packs in? What if I can't set foot on a plane after the kids leave home? What if I can't walk or drive down the road with the dog?

But wait. Wasn't the prompt DREAM?

I had a recurring dream as a child. I'd be hiding behind the table in the kitchen. The table was turned on its side so that it created a shield between myself and the door. I couldn't see what was coming, but I was afraid. I could sense something was about to happen. Spying from above the edge of the table, I could see movement just outside the door. Then suddenly, a manic old woman would rush in, arms flapping, angry, towards the table. Over and over again, night after night, even after we moved into a new home. She never did catch me, the old woman, and I eventually stopped dreaming about her. Perhaps my fears were always there, they were just angrier and scarier when I was a child.

Dream, dreams, reams of dreams. Fabric tightly woven unravelling into sense and non-sense, into perfect meaning and absolute emptiness, leaving me shrouded and naked, held and exposed. To dream, to know oneself and to not know, to continue to hide behind obfuscation, to dread lifting that heavy woollen blanket drenched with fear of insight, of knowing myself, of seeing I am real. I am here saturate, ripe, with real longings, unfulfilled waiting for the reaching hand of acknowledgement, the touch of humanity, warm or clammy, ideal or base, can I accept life, the other, as it is. Tumbling now, a whirlwind of emotion sucking me into the void. The dread of feeling, of hope, of longing too tangible to be denied. Dissolved in a pool of anxiousness, of having something that can then be lost, fear of the everlasting hankering for that once briefly glimpsed barely, felt but never held, slipping through my fingers, out of my grasp. Fleeting, as sleet melting at the moment of contact, lingering uncertainty, was it real or just a dream? Time beckons me on to more tangible words, and resentment where I long to linger in the gutter, swept along with the rainfall, no longer responsible for myself, my life, lost in a dream, a fantasy of what once was, what might have been and maybe once could be. Present loss cannot compare to these sweet temptations, tantalising with their undulating ways.