Do you have dreams that are as complex as a story you might read in The New Yorker, with visually clear characters and settings? Or is it just those of us who fancy ourselves writers who experience these vivid apparitions? This morning I woke with such a dream lively in my mind and tried to write it all down quickly. Will I be able to read the scrawled notes in my journal if I ever turn that dream into an actual story? Maybe.
The central theme of the dream, as I consider it now, involves the way so many people bury their creativity in order to lead what they think will be satisfying lives. Perhaps they have a long term relationship–full of love, and to all appearances exactly what that person needs. And yet, beneath the surface discontent grows. That person needs something more. Perhaps he or she bursts out of the relationship and pursues their creative urge–to dance, make and fly airplanes, spend their days painting vivid landscapes on cast-off surfboards. Or perhaps the discontent ends in drugs or drink or the gradual dulling of the relationship.
Sure makes me think we all need to find and develop our own creativity, no matter what form it takes. So often we miss out, and maybe that starts not just with how we’re raised but with our educational system too. Really–all the arts are just as important to education as STEM courses, history and English, and such. And with the miserable state of public education, most kids don’t get even a bit of these arts. I sit here and shake my head. Well, folks, it’s so-called Independence day, so declare your independence–write another chapter of your novel, sing at full throat, dance around the living room, draw a zany picture, knit a new pattern, invent a new way to cook zucchini. Live it up!
