Mind in the morning

I've always had a cooperative dream life. That is, instead of weird dreams begging for interpretation, the dreams I recall are always scenes from whatever story I'm working on -- so that I wake eager to write them down, going to my work desk feeling more like a secretary than a writer.

Even on non-writing projects, my dreams plug into my life. Waking this morning, for example, "I ache, therefore I am," I saw vivid visualizations of banjo exercises I've been working on, learning single note brushes. I'll actually do these exercises later in the day and I have no idea if seeing them in my mind helps me learn them, but that's what I awoke to. Soon, however, my mind had slipped into my musical score, and I began working out the structure of the next 16 bars of an old man, ghost of wife, duet I've been working on. The next writing I'll do on the score, hopefully today.

So my dreams continue to cooperate. Maybe there are hidden horrors that haven't risen to consciousness but this is what I remember when I wake up.

I later gave some thought to the Super Bowl. It will be a great game because either team winning will be a great thing, either a celebration of Manning's extraordinary mental and physical gifts as a quarterback, or the poetic justice of the Saints completing the feel good sports story of the year. As long as it is a clean, hard-fought game with nothing weird, this should be a Super Bowl to remember.

I decided to make special blackeyed peas for the day, something a little fancier than what I typically do. I look forward to Sunday. Until then, I have two good days to get a lot of work done on the banjo and the score.

As long as I keep Voltaire front and center, tending my own garden, life is good. It's in the broader perspective that garbage enters the picture. Just as V has it in Candide. Because "it's the worst of all possible worlds" is as much a satire as the other.