last night. I was in a place where all communication was via neatly folded handwritten notes that were slid like playing cards across tables or furtively palmed by those wishing to remain discreet. It seemed an up-market cafe served by a short order chef dressed in whites behind the polished bar. On his head was a small cotton hat and around his neck a cravat that gave him the look of a young Al Pacino. Up and down the bar people were sliding notes that only after making eye contact would he pass on. The place was busy and even though no one spoke it was full of noise and chatter because when people unfolded their squares of paper words were released into the air like conversation.
I had an idea it was Saturday night and everyone was relaxed. Some of the notes made people laugh and everyone was patient even those I could see waiting outside the tall double doors for the doorman to write his greeting. He used a beautiful maroon fountain pen and I could hear the satisfying scratch of its nib on the heavy paper. He creased each sheet twice to make sure the edges were neat then folded a square which guests opened so they might enter the room with words.
The dream changed, a pity because it was so unusual.
11 comments:
I like this dream, I like this dream. Can you imagine people not getting a chance to fight properly because they have to write and fold, write and fold.
Man Dan, for a guy with only one good ear, you sure hear a lot, even in your dreams.
wonderful images... I love the idea of words on the page released into the air like conversation....
dreams often take us to such special places, offer such soul satisfying beauty.
good stuff.
Dan, check out this blog: http://www.abeautifulrevolution.com
He does one post per page, but if you click on 'Archives' all the goodies come up.
Dan, check out this blog: http://www.abeautifulrevolution.com
He does one post per page, but if you click on 'Archives' all the goodies come up.
G,
My dream was one of those powerful ones that stay even after you've woken up. I really liked the idea of a bar where people wrote notes to one another and in my dream I saw a folded note of cream paper that was slid over the bar by a man's manicured hand. He rested his fingertips on the note as he pushed, it was an elegent action. The note was approximately three or four inches square and the paper was heavy and expensive. It all seemed so natural.
Re the hearing, I was standing three or four feet from the bar and looking left toward the front door so it was my good ear that heard the scratching nib. Now that I think about it I find it interesting that in my dream it was my good ear that heard the noise. Mind you, not just a good ear but a brilliant one to hear over the sound of conversation someone outside the building writing!
Hayden,
Thanks mate, appreciate the compliment, I really do. Didn't Shakespeare say something about dreams and us? I shall go and look it up and get back to you.
x
Maybe if people would stop to write down things before they utter them they would think better about what they were about to say.
You were in a Chinese restaurant with people reading messages from fortune cookies?
Good blog.
D,
Maybe that's the message from my dream. That we should stop and think a bit first. In the UK we have a saying "Engage brain before speaking." A lesson to us all there I think.
Dan, your dream woke me up tonight so I had to come here to "talk to you."
Heaven only knows what you were thinking when you dreamed it, but for me this is a lovely metaphor for the blogosphere - we all sit quietly, tapping out words, and they only become conversation when someone "opens the note" and then the voices hang in the air....a disembodied coctail party....no one is 'talking' but the voices are all there.... this is the new world we are learning to inhabit.
(at least, I'm convinced that this is why your dream resonated so deeply for me, I think this is the "meaning" that my subconscious found in it)
Hayden,
What an interesting observation. And you're right, here we all are, unable to speak yet feverishly writing to each other. Maybe my dream was about blogging. But then again, Freud said that every dream had both latent and manifest meanings, the trick was in the interpretation. What latent meanings were bound up for me in the cafe, Al Pacino in kitchen whites? Expensive folded writing paper, an expensive maroon pen? Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Post a Comment