I need to write a new poem. And while a poem seems to be slowly
coming to the surface like leaves in a heavy rainstorm, so far, it's eluded me. I have dreams like that. Dreams that feel like they’re coming to the
surface, but when I wake up, they’re gone, submerged into the dark mud of my
night world.
Could it be the oppression of snow? We’ve not had this kind of snow before. The relentless piling of heavy chunks of
white on top of everything, week after week. I suppose we
could get used to it, but we’ll not get the chance. By the time we’ve accepted all the
inconvenience and danger, it will be spring.
Where does creativity spring from? People talk about having a muse. I suppose that’s an interesting theory. Like being in love and being inspired to give
the world everything you wish for your lover, or maybe love of an idea that lodges in
the mind like a familiar. I think it has
to do with energy, some kind of physical chemistry. When I reach out for that, it just eludes
me. Could be the season or just the
nature of my work these days.
Managing a database is like having a virtual orphanage or school. Each child’s progress has to be
recorded, and graded and graduated to adulthood. Some get adopted. Some repeat and repeat until you have to send
them out into the world, ready or not. Sometimes
they get into my sleep, these bits of data, struggling to coalesce, to become
discrete and assume or assert identity.
When I wake from dreams like that, I feel cheated.
I’d rather have one of my recurring nightmares than a dream
about work. My nightmares follow two
patterns. In the first one, I’m driving
my car and I come upon a somewhat familiar route, but it looks different and I
get lost and hopelessly unable to find my way.
Sometimes I reach a cul-de-sac with boulders toppled everywhere, or
cliffs with trees growing along the sides, or other times the road turns into a
canal. Then I have to get out and walk. Sometimes I miraculously have a purple
umbrella or a white raincoat, or some other helpful item.
In the second nightmare, I’m in a school. It’s usually a huge building with a very tall
elevator, and I’m always looking for the library, which is in a mezzanine and
not easy to find. You can’t get there by
the elevator. So I go up or down the
stairwell, stopping on floors and wandering around, hoping to find the
entrance. Sometimes I wander into places
I’m not supposed to be, where marble corridors and hunt pictures presage
executive suites. So, if I don’t find
the library, strange people arrive and try to draw me into things I don't have any interest in, and I get more and more lost.
But once in a blue moon, I do find the library, and it’s magnificent,
with a high-domed, ornately carved gold ceiling, very high windows and tall, tall shelves of books. An old Oriental
carpet is worn in places, and there are stuffed arm chairs. It’s just heaven. And of course, no matter how I try to
memorize the doorways, I always have trouble finding it again.
You can surely see how searching for libraries and being
lost in a wilderness could be more fun than holding the reins of a database, or
shoveling inches and inches of snow around a car that’s totally inadequate for
the season.
Maybe creativity, like dreams, is just an escape.
