Dream Dreaming

It's been one of those mad writerly spells—copyediting one book while reimagining another, playing with scenarios and structures. This morning, 3:30 AM, it was as if the room was spinning about me, as if I was behind a steed of slightly wild horses, getting pulled along. Wanting control, but surely out of control. Books all about in such precarious stacks that I was in danger of toppling them all.

Breathe, I told myself. Concentrate.

But it was no good—me berating me that way. I needed a voice in my head that was bigger than my own, and so I turned to a book that my sister recently sent, The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute to Edward Hopper. I've quoted from it once before, in this blog. Today, I'm just stealing two small lines from an W.R. Elton poem called "Hopper: In the Cafe:"

who are these people
moved by what dream

That's it. Two lines. That slowed me down. It restored for me the task at hand. My job, right now, is to imagine the dreams of the characters I've gone and dreamed up.