In my Dreams

I woke from a dream just now in which I was chatting with Michael Ondaatje. He had a shop (I don't know where) and a young son (all dark-haired, tiny), and he sat behind a wooden counter that was stacked about with books. I was working, I told him, on a research project involving a composer who claimed his music was based on Ondaatje novels. I wondered what Ondaatje himself had to say about his writing sparking a legacy of song.

Ondaatje was gracious. He shifted his son in his arms and lifted the composer's work from my hands. He was quiet, then looked up and told me, No. No Ondaatje's work had not inspired these songs. Look more carefully, he said. Think more deeply.

I was ashamed, of course I was. But I wake determined to make this day one of deep thinking and careful seeing.

Funny how authors keep talking to us, even if we've never met them.