I sometimes have these dreams. I know you all probably have them. You’re running, and you know that you can fly, but you also know it only happens in dreams, so you accept that you’re not dreaming and can’t really fly right now, but feel like trying anyway. So you do. You run fast as you can, and jump, and then by an extreme force of will you find yourself hovering several feet in the air.
I’ve noticed a pattern.
I only have these dreams when I’ve been particularly productive, or made a choice that seems like a good one creatively. If I’m just going through the motions of my days, or just doing something to do something, I don’t dream of flying. I have wonderful, sometimes absolutely insane images in my dreams but no flying. The flying happens when I turn a corner on something, or make a decision to take action on something for which I have massive enthusiasm.
I had one the other night. It was awesome. I was sure that this was real life, and that there was no chance of actually flying. I was walking through the playground at my old elementary school. There were kids around, and a teacher who was wrestling with an inflatable pool, trying to get it into a shed. I ran up and decided to jump the fifty yards to help her, knowing that this was not a dream and that I’d never be able to do it, but wanting to try anyway.
So I did.
And flew hovering three feet off the ground all the way to the teacher and pulled the kiddie pool into the shed for her. She thanked me and remarked that I was flying, and how nice that was. I agreed. I loved the fact that this was the real world, and I’m never able to pull it off in the real world, so it really was rather nice.
Whereupon I woke up, and knew that the letter I’d written the day before was a good letter. Even if it doesn’t lead to the things that I hope, it’s still a good letter. It’s still a declaration of the things I believe about this book. It’s still a letter that says, “Milo is real, and good, and people relate to his super-sweet cloudiness.” Despite the fact that this is the real world, and there are countless people who tell you, “you can’t do that,” in the real world, despite the number of times I tell my-SELF, “you can’t do that,” in the real world, sometimes the real world is just as dreamy as a dream. Sometimes you wake up to find that you’ve done the thing that everyone says you can’t do in just the way you wanted to do it.
Sometimes you realize that you CAN fly, even if it’s just three feet off the ground. Sometimes three feet is enough to get the pool in the shed.
And if that’s not enough, last night I dreamt about a cigar-smoking train conductor going up an endless staircase in a dark tunnel while holding a large beaver.
The future looks bright.
