elementary epistomology and ontology

January 19, 2007 - Friday -- Mother Letter #5
(written 1-17-Wednesday)

Stir craziness is taking over. The city has been iced in for three days. I've not budged from the house since Monday. The physical inactivity has started to affect me. Hyperness and a pervasive feeling of restless has taken over. Up, down. Up, down. It's hard to sit still. Jumping jacks have provided intermittent relief. In my first venture outside, I slipped and almost fell. Every time since then, I've bundled up as a caution. In case I did slip and fall, at least I'd be warm laying on the ground waiting for rescue.

Last evening, tired of serious reading, finding nothing of interest on T.V., and bored with videos, I crawled into bed with my latest "grocery-store-tranquilizer-mystery-paperback-novel." The sleep-charm worked. I was asleep within fifteen minutes; both glasses and bedside lamp still on. I know this because I woke up thirty minutes later. And, I know this, because for some reason I looked at my watch. It seemed important at the time. Was it the dream that awakened me?

I could see myself standing in a sterile room in the middle of a complex grid of lazerbeams emitting white light. The beams were running parallel and perpendicular to each other, almost in perfect squares. The horizontal lines had hatch marks. Instinctively, I knew I needed to be still. I was watching myself like a hall-monitor. My back was to me in the dream as I was facing a large, secure door. It was then I awakened, wondered why it was so light, and the dream faded. But, as all my dreams go, I knew what I saw before the image faded.

Mid-morning, I thought about the dream again and compared its similarity to my almost every morning ritual of watching the sun start its journey over the horizon. First it alerts the clouds and they signal the coming of the new day with expressions of color. This sight is fleeting. One second the cloud-color-mixes of the morning are there, and in the next second the exact artful vision is gone. But, I know what I saw. This early morning experience is like the dream. How I see the sunrises and my dreams are esthetically mine and mine alone. It is in how I see them that I tell you about them.