I dream of living in the middle of nowhere, in a quiet little town whose name has been lost to both the echoes of time and the too-small print on maps. On clear evenings, I bike down to the small lake surrounded by clusters of trees that have stood hushed and undisturbed since the beginning of time. They watch me as I watch the way the water purples in the rapidly waning twilight.
I dream of climbing a small hill on a hot summer's night and tipping backwards so that my back is flush with the soft grass and my face is bared for all the stars and the moon and the empty space of sky to see. The mosquitoes are also star-gazing; they leave me alone. I marvel at the wonder which is the night sky and count the stars as one might count sheep. Sleep finds me, and I close my eyes to find more stars painted on the canvas of my eyelids.
I dream of a first snowfall. I am alone in my experience of it, the only person in the whole world who happens to be outside when the first snowflake leaves its home in the sky to know what it means to lie upon the ground. The air is still, and its stillness stills the constant buzz in my brain. I hold my breath as more snowflakes coat the floor of the earth. They rise and cover my boots, dust my lashes, sit in the warmth of my pockets. The world is a snow globe, and it’s magical.
I dream of being a farmgirl. I am capable and know how to tend to the animals, to the crops, to the equipment, to the old house that has been in the family for generations upon generations. In the summer, dirt and berry stains embroider themselves into the hems of my clothes. In the winter, I curl up by the fireplace with my family and we swap stories that were born lifetimes ago. With the sun upon my head, I climb the gentle slope to the shade of our apple tree. With a book in my arms, I survey the good work laid out by my hands and the hands of my family and their family.
I dream of living by the sea. The scene shifts; tropical to Mediterranean, Mediterranean to Pacific Northwest. They all glimmer under the same sun. My skin is brown from spending my days selecting seashells from the sand; my skin smells like sea, like salt. My hair is coarse from the wind. My body is strong from sunrise swims and evening runs that skirt the waves that wash up on the shore. I develop a taste for seafood and pen countless letters to God in thanks for creating such a beautiful world.
I dream of walking down narrow winding streets, a boy by my side. (We don’t know it yet, but we will be the great loves of each others’ lives.) The haze of street-lamp-yellow that alights on our hair is punctuated by the flickering neon lights of small storefronts. The silence of nighttime that grazes our shoulders is punctuated by the lone sounds of our worn shoes against concrete and the whispers of our voices. The air is hot and sticky, clinging to the long-forgotten ice cream cones we clasp in our hands. We talk as if to write encyclopedias, telling each other about the small wonders that make up our lives.
I dream of knowing another language—the language of my ancestors and home country; the language of the seaside, the language of snowfall, the language of quiet summer nights spent lake-watching. My mind is quick and clever. I craft witty jokes and intricate stories in this other language. It colours the way I carry conversations, carry myself. When I write, the words I select are not dissimilar to those I choose now, but they are different enough that you can see their meaning from the other side of them. The sounds of my stories are different but the themes remain the same: I am small, the world is big. Every little thing carries more weight than one imagines. Every little puzzle piece comes together to form a beautiful whole that must hang, framed, in the living room. Every little discarded scrap of fabric links arms with more of the same to form a dazzling patchwork quilt that must be draped over the foot of the bed. I come to understand this in every dream I walk myself through. I come to understand this in the dream that is my reality.
P.S. I saw this picture on Pinterest; it started this whole stream of thoughts.