A Dreamy Moment on a Timeless Summer's Day

I used to be a much more interesting dreamer.  Back in the day, I might disrupt sleep with outbursts of flying and mayhem,  or with a strange, toothless amble down a raging river.  These days, though, my dreams are more like visits to the local grocery store, filled with little lists and ordinariness, the occasional Jackfruit thrown in to keep things interesting.

Dreams, like so many other things, can let us down a bit if we are expecting only fireworks and Lord Fauntleroy.

So, how to explain the small smile I woke with this morning?  Surely, its source wasn't the tiny dream I'd been having, the one utterly void of action verbs.

But I knew otherwise.  It was, indeed, that simple dream that had washed over me.

In it, a younger me is laying on my bedroom floor, propped up on an elbow and feet crossed casually above my head.  A sketch pad in front of me,  I move my pencil across it, the fat, rounded nub working patiently.  Downstairs, my mom finishes the morning paper, both of us content in the morning quiet.   While I'm sketching, my mind moves to the books I've read and I'm filled with such love for them, for the places they've taken me, the people I've met.  And, for just a moment, I set down my pencil, overwhelmed that there are such things as libraries, all those stories free for the taking.

That was it, my dream.  A few minutes in a timeless space, filled with the beloved and the familiar--my mom, my room, some doodles and books.  Yet, the deep contentment that I woke with hung with me through the next few hours, its presence both warm and familiar.

I'd been between books when I went to bed last night, having said goodbye to Inspector Gamache and Three Pines earlier in the day.  After this morning's dream, though,  I knew exactly what my next book would be, one that is both magical and familiar.  The Wind and The Willows was written, no doubt, for a younger me, yet it is also deeply loved by my current self.

So, this morning, I said "hello" again to Mole and Ratty, letting my hand dangle into the river, while Ratty pushed off from the shore, with no particular place in mind.