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random thoughts



last night, a large yellow moon
hung low on the lake, defied
wind and snow as it stirred
dreams into what-if concoctions.

and even though it defied words, I had the most
intriguing dream of wandering through a refurbished
factory-warehouse perched on the edge of water.
lake or ocean, I'm not sure which. but inside,
high ceilings and room after room of hardwood
floors that creaked with each step. best of all,
the most unusual objects lined floors and walls,
pedestals and stairs. well-crafted curiosities
with kinetic components that invited touch and
seduced skin to slide across smooth contours til
they found inter-locking parts that moved in and
out with elusive purpose. some items were small
enough to fit in one`s hand. the dull warmth of
wood on old-polished brass reflected a larger
frame of contrary notions, near and far folded
into big and small. tiny forms nestled inside
larger ones. driftwood reconfigured into tool-like
contraptions embedded with metal and leather
repurposed from some unknown era. utilitarian
impossibilities quickly overrun by sheer beauty.
at the top of the stairs was the largest room.
it held an entire wall devoted to video images
of sea gulls playfully biting each other`s bills
through a spray of waves, their feathers barely
discernable. above them were three geese who
chased the wind back and forth, flipped and flew
upside down like Snowbirds. a large mirror hung
beside the video-wall and faced the windows. a
second mirror contained a holographic image. but
both mirrors faced each other and reflected the
gulls who flew in and out of frame; both the
actual sea gulls outside and the video gulls
intersected again and again. like Nietsche`s
eternal return and like all disparate thoughts
that add up to more, this room spilled with so
many diverse surfaces plus water and sky outside.
an enchanting space in a rubric`s-cube-kind-of-way.
I wanted to remain there for its endless comfort
but there was something more. in a corner, the
vague sense-of-a-man who was notsomuch an image
as he was a quality (a presence), someone who
adored the beauty of materials and their physical
forms, a man who hovered unobstrusively with
patience and watchful half-smiles. upon waking,
I felt sad to have lost him.

something woke me in mid-dream and much as I
tried, I couldn't find my way back to that space.
instead, I flung the sheets wide and walked to
the kitchen. while coffee was brewing, I searched
on-line for evidence that geese really fly like
that. and yes! they have been video-taped in
acrobatic flight. by coincidence, a very large
flock of canada geese flew past my window,
hundreds honking ... apparently geese honk when
they fly to encourage the lead goose who is the
only one to fly without `lift`; wings-in-motion
create a slip-stream that lessens the drag and
pull of air on each subsequent goose; this allows
them to work a little less hard in the V. when
the lead goose tires, it falls back to let another
one lead. ... my curious interest in geese plus
other unexplainabilities amidst the desire for
dreams to live on.

quite by chance, a few days ago, I found myself
in an obscure antique shop with a small object.
a lidded stainless steel disc of considerable
weight whose top screwed off easily. impeccably
machined and inscribed with 24 numbers arranged
in clock-formation around its permimeter. the
centre of the lid contained a very thick concave
lens that magnified the words inside; they listed
destinations from various time zones. one had to
rotate the lid to align any one name with a
specific time of day. this, for the sake of
reading corresponding times in other parts of
the world. its weighted motion, coupled with
the way it captured light,, felt strangely
familiar in my hands, as if I`d held it before.
this feeling was not unlike the many curious
effects that the objects from my dream evoked.
perhaps I will return to that store.

but of these disparate thoughts and the space
inside my dream, its clarity, I now wonder if
this is yet another one of those dreams,
the ones with a sense-of-place I`ll eventually
revisit for the very first time. otherwise,
perhaps it serves as some subconscious urge to
awaken a sheltered heart from wintering way too
long, a nebulous nudge to coax time for more
creative pursuits.

with freshly-brewed coffee in hand, an icy view
of the lake in my window and blue shadows on snow,
I open a torn leather sketchbook, the one with
the graphite sketches of canada geese, page after
page of sequential remainders that add up to a
study in flight. "maybe prints" I think as I sip.

if anything implores a return to that sublime
studio-state-of-mind, the physicality of form,
curious objects and their reflected expressions,
if anything, this dream does.

and o,
sunday mornings.