By John William Waterhouse — Wiki Commons

I went on the side of the house that still feels like the country and had a leak there, spied the full moon through the trees out too many nights in a row now, bleary eyed and runny; I saw my breath, that kind of moist cold with the frost setting in and everything a bit crunchy, some frogs chirping, the suggestion of an owl, a good night for owls…

The inside of our house from the outside looked perfect how the candle burned, the soft glow, the majesty of it and stars above on a clear winter’s night, like a toy setting I manufactured as a kid, unreal and perfect for a time.

To lay vs. lie, these are important distinctions. To have lain under the milk of the cold moon, to lie in the thick moss of the yard, so thick it left my outline when I rose from it, where I lay, with whom I lie, the moss.

Dream residue, it’s how you felt is what you remember, those dreams that leave you feeling like you need to shake it off: poorly drawn scenes, nonsensical, the mind’s filing system laid out bare.

I gathered the fallen limbs from the yard; even the pieces of driftwood we’d saved from the beach I burned, they no longer resembled anything special, no cartoon faces or odd shaped tools I could see in them anymore, just scrap.

And as they burned I wondered if the memories there got destroyed or released in the air, if I could smell the sea salt in the wood and flames. If anyone would notice, or if it was just in my head.

I woke by the light of the morning moon cold on the sofa, wrapped in blankets, the ticking of the clock, the dream residue I tried to understand and let go of, though it clung to me.

Into a thicket of broken branches and upturned trees the cat went

The look on Charlotte as we danced and she twirled, a look of love

The uprooted tree strapped to a rock like a slingshot

How these scenes blurred in waking life and dreams; they demanded my attention but didn’t make sense, and I’d work to forget or remember them every day and return to my bed empty, to lie there until morning sorting things out, to rise for the last of the moon, and its cold light.

Categories: musings, writing

Tags: dream interpretations, dream symbolism, dreams, lay vs lie, mid-life crisis, postaday, stream-of-consciousness, William Pearse writer