Lately, I have been dreaming of a river and dirt roads

BLOT: (13 Oct 2015 - 10:09:20 AM)

Lately, I have been dreaming of a river and dirt roads

Dreams have been a mixed weird bag for me lately. I do not remember all that many of them, but I get snatches. I remember moods from the dreams more than the dreams themselves. For some reason, a lot of the dreams lately have involved scenes from my younger days, but the present me, or someone like me. And my younger days have been transformed into a strange, epic world folded back over itself.

I have been dreaming of a river. It is nameless, but highly inspired by my days swimming and rafting and walking alongside the Sepulga River in lower Alabama. Around this river is a maze of old dirt roads. The dreams almost always take place in twilight. And along this river and those roads are large, dark buildings of no specific purpose, lit mostly by porchlights and yardlights. I travel back and forth along these roads, and visit some of these buildings—many of which contain multiudes of schools, houses, stores, and such—and though I am never alone in these dreams, I can never remember the people that are with me.

I am not accomplishing anything in these dreams. I am merely existing. No one ever calls me by name, though no one ever seems to mind me being there. I am both at the start of my journey—starting school, going off somewhere new—and somewhere in the long stretches of it. Things stalk the river and the roads, but they do not chase me. I merely must not stop and face them.

In one dream, I was floating under water, covered in fishhooks and light, alongside a flooded school that was somehow still functional. In last night's dream, I was paddling back and forth along the river, always with the sense that I was meant to be somewhere else. I do not drown. I do not even get wet. The river and the twilight horrors of the road have no power over me. I am not a god in my dream, I am merely an ink pen writing out the shape of them. I am a witness.

To better see some of the images of the dream, it might be good to see what the Sepulga looks like. I found this image on a newsstory, Sepulga River challenges through centuries: Pristine waterway unique in region:

The river of my dreams, much like the Sepulga, is more a glorified creek with occasional moments of depth and danger. It winds through swamp land and rock, rarely being tainted by the nearby civilization. It is brown and muddy and beautiful in its own way.

I am sure that everyone reading this has their own interpretation of what this must mean. I will offer an alternative, one that makes a lot of sense as I am typing it. The river (and those roads, and those dark buidlings, and those people I cannot remember and who do not seem to remember my name) are me. They are not some unstructured regret of the past or anxiety about the future, they are my brain trying to make sense of all things I am, as painted in images of my youth and symbols that first awoke in me a sense of awe and fear. The morass of nameless roads and river are merely a tool to try and bring the me-that-was in contact with the me-that-will-be.

Next time I have one, I think I will try and stop and wait for the stalking things. Except, well...

"Lately all of my dreams have been a river"

Lately, all of my dreams have been a river:
Rhyme written in brown rocks and mud.
Lately, all of my dreams have been dirt roads:
Bright rain and clay turning ditches into blood.

That dark river flows swamp and hollow,
A great word of drowning in deep breaths.
That long road touches stars and clouds,
Past houses all windows and little else.

There is a legend of some forgotten place,
A laughter of children and smiling fear.
There is a legend of some forgotten Doug,
In leaves and sticks and the furthest near,

And of stalking things diving into that river,
With the sound of clicks and lonesome strings.
And of stalking things creeping down those roads,
Into the pine trees where the bullfrog sings.

But fear not the stalking things, do not give
Them power to make you stop. Do not worry
About their deer skulls nor their spidery teeth.
Do not fear them, but neither should you tarry.

I and those stalking things, let us dance,
And tell old stories of sin to one another:
Long rivers of honeysuckle and poison ivy,
Old roads full of cracked tire ruts and lovers.

I long to swim rivers, to inhale their name.
I long to drink birth waters that are my
Soul's autumn heat. I long to breathe roads.
I long to stalk the song of nameless twilight.

Lately, all of my dreams have been a river,
Flowing into the ancient pools of youth.
Lately, all of my dreams have been clay roads,
Running past those dimly lit houses of truth.