If I close my eyes to dream, I must fill the empty pages.
If I close my eyes to dream, I journey to Paris where I am invisible, and I am seen.
I make my way to the Seine, I walk along its quais and through its crowds, I wander north,through jostling neighborhoods toward home, and home again.
If I stop for a coffee, I watch the passersby. I inhale more deeply. I do not need instruction.
I see my place of worship (and why not?): The Centre Pompidou, where I recall the controversy in its construction, its coming to life, its flamboyant form – all pipes and fittings, glass and audacity.
If I close my eyes to dream, I praise the palms of painters and sculptors: Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Joan Mitchell, Henry Moore. I wade into Matisse and Vlaminck, I enter Dubuffet’s garden of optical illusion, and I exit to the whimsy of Asger Jorn.
* * * * *
If I close my eyes to dream, I turn my key in the lock on rue Charlot. The building wears its years with grace and here, I write and sleep at peace, I wait for evening’s arrival, I know we will drink and celebrate, then fall into the press and ache of colors. This is temporary but I will hold it forever: voicing our pleasure, red lingering on our palates, fingers in their scrimmage and sigh.
* * * *
If I close my eyes to dream, I walk with the stride of a very young woman, I freshen my makeup at Bloomingdale’s as we do each late afternoon. I meet a friend, and we stroll through the designer dresses in Saks. We push uptown as the sun sets and we settle into the 80s scene. She is skilled and I observe as though learning were so simple; I nurse a single glass of wine. Backgammon spills onto the streets.
* * * * *
If I close my eyes to dream, I sleep in Jamaica and I wake to a man who tells me stories, to his strawberry beard, to our sun privately beaming and burning the skin. I brown like a bean and there is no discomfort; I doze on the beach while he studies maps and charts.
We swim one last time together, as the sky flares into violet streaks.
* * * * *
If I close my eyes to dream, my grandmother cooks in her yellow kitchen, she stands in her mossy bedroom by the vanity, she wears her opal ring, her ruby lipstick, and I know the drawer where she keeps her opera length gloves. She lets me play here as a child.
My grandmother is changing her clothes with her back to me. To my surprise, she turns and reveals her body.
She is 74, and she says: it is hard to grow old.
* * * * *
If I close my eyes to dream even in waking, I draw from a well-stocked library.
There is Paris in every season, New York in summer and autumn, Jamaica in winter. I may worship at my altars: cadmium red and impasto, the nib of wine and salt writing my lips, the aromas in the yellow kitchen.
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Loved this!!!! I tweeted it too! Wonderful! Beautifully done! It totally took me away. Thanks!
And what’s this? I am the first to post on a post of yours? That’s just wrong…no, really…I think something is wrong. My computer must not be showing all the comments.
Anyway, that was beautiful! Delicious food for thought as well.
Oh Cat. Thank you. I was late to my writing today and trying to not rush, and only posted an hour ago. And I’m very disappointed in this piece of writing. I know what it wanted to be in my head, but it doesn’t quite work. And that’s why writers edit. Something I allow little time to do, here, which feels like a shame. That aside, I’m trying to put myself in a mind space that is both tranquil and energizing. To me. And that means Paris, and art, and yes – a few very special recollections.
This is so visual, so beautiful.
The one with your grandma is so poignant.
Thank you Maureen. I’ve written a lot about my grandmother (not here). And I do, now, understand what she said, and why she said it. She was, and still is, my model for a woman who is strong and beautiful and steadfast.
You are so critical on yourself (reading the response to Cat/Wild Mind) – this WAS beautiful!! I loved it, and sometimes, the posts that just flow out of nowhere, the least “thought out” are the best. This was one of those posts.
Maybe it’s just because I am here with you, but I too go to Paris: to a small hotel room in the 5th, with a wrought-iron balcony and a view of window boxes in bloom. Or the gardens outside the Musee Rodin. Or a stately park in the Marais overrun with little boys chasing pigeons.
Thanks for the encouragement to dream this evening. I hope your night is filled with sleep, your sleep is filled with dreams, and your dreams are filled with the images you most wish to see.
xo
I love your writing! I don’t know how I found you (a click here a click there) but I love your writing. Your visions and troubles are vivid and engaging. They make me think and feel. I see the world in small steps. Steps that are controllable (when they are not out of control). Sometimes from some perspectives they may not be … but there is always a next step towards something better. Your writing makes me feel big steps are coming and also makes me I wish I could write as well as you so that I could have the affect on others that you have had on me. Thank you for the the potential you have and give me – I love your writing!
Thank you, Jim. Lovely the way one click leads to another. Nice to have you here, and I appreciate your kind words.
We hold similar dreams. You inspire… Bravo.
Wolf, this piece was absolutely incredible. I KNOW you won’t believe this, but your writing is incredible whether it is edited or unedited. I am surprised that you can write so incredibly in a short time.
That said, when I close my eyes I go to Lake Tahoe. It is there that B proposed to me. It is there that we really started our lives together. The sunset, the beach, the beauty of the moment. I still shiver when I think about it.
I agree with everyone—I love this! It just worked for me and I was transported to your places, and to the intersection of my own experiences… in every instance—from the cities to memories of my Buby, beautiful in the bath and utterly unselfconscious in comparison to my mom’s insane levels of privacy.
It also made me think of being at a dinner in Jamaica at some opulent home, as an eleven-year-old, and the owners of the place talking in hushed terms about throats being slit in the night and political unrest on the island… very scary and yet a bit James Bond.
I love the Pompidou… I keep thinking of a small piece I saw there by a Hungarian artist, although I can’t remember the name, but the drawing also carried the words, “D’etre humain dans la flux eternelle.”
Thank you – everyone who enjoyed this piece, especially if it allowed you to close your eyes and picture places you would go to unwind, or spread your wings. And Bruce, I’m not sure which peintre you may be thinking of, but I thought this snippet on the Hungarian Fauves might include a mention of the artist you were trying to recall.
It is amazing how a piece of music, a work of art, or an assemblage of words can stay with us, and continue to give pleasure.
I, too, go to Paris. The Champs-Elysees, of all places. Where people swirl all around me yet I am alone, free, peaceful. (And preferably snacking on a crepe avec Nutella.) Also, I loved all your gorgeous images! What a very sense-inspiring post.
I go to the woods. I know, not what most would think. I go back to Lake Placid, to walking in the winter in the streets when automotive traffic was not allowed for the event, to meeting the athletes and being present when the US team won that hockey game.
Why is it that we can go back to some place, point in time and realize how present we were then but have a horrible time being present in the day-to-day now?
Nicki – you ask a great question:
Why is it that we can go back to some place, point in time and realize how present we were then but have a horrible time being present in the day-to-day now?
I have an idea. Those moments I described were rare times of being outside my usual harried routine. Outside the pressure, the schedule, and the actual location where reality’s machinery runs at a faster clip and relentlessly. It is hard – if not impossible – to be “present” when you’re running several races simultaneously, with little break.
When we’re younger, we’re a bit less bound to the lives (and needs and schedules) of others. Fewer interdependent cogs in the machinery. I know my ability to turn off my head at 30, leaving a job, was far greater than at 40, when I had two babies, a husband, a home, a pile of responsibilities, and a job.
All the moments I wrote of – Paris, New York, Jamaica – or the way my grandmother comes to me so gently in dream, and vividly, are moments in which I was naturally present, not seeking to be. On vacation, much younger and with fewer responsibilities, or in a place where I feel so alive that not feeling it would be impossible.
I believe we ask too much of ourselves to be so “present” – and it becomes one more thing we are self-critical about. Yet one more source of stress. For me, anyway.
I can be present in my writing (some of the time), and present when I leave this physical place with all its stress. When I am in France. Or in front of incredible art, almost anywhere. I think we all have places where we let go and renew, at the same time.
Your walk in the woods sounds lovely.
This was just lovely, Wolfie! Truly! The snippet about your grandmother gave me goose bumps.
I go where I can hear the ocean crash on rocks.
What a beautiful post! I was mesmerized and so caught up in YOUR dream. I want to go there (and there and there and there) too!
Disappointed in this writing? Are you “crazy”? 🙂 It’s beautiful. Dreaming is therapeutic. Positive thoughts are healing. Dreaming about positive thoughts can’t help but “recharge,” help us focus and center ourselves.
Absolutely beautiful!
I go where my mind takes me. Sometimes that is to places I gladly share and sometimes to somewhere other than those.