I Can't Believe It's Not Blogging

The Message is Medium Rare

Camera

Mar 17 2002

I had a dream once, and was allowed to take pictures, because my camera had fallen into the water. Film that would normally have developed into mere blurry reveries was changed, reversed by the creek, and images from the dream could be coalesced into photos that I could show to others.

In the dream, I climbed a mountain with friends, and fell into the creek. When we made camp on the high slopes, I dried all my clothing over the fire, against the coming cool of the evening, but did not dry the camera. The nylon of my shoes crisped from the heat of the flames.

We set logs around the fire, to sit ourselves on, to cook and sing. The fire found its way into us through warm food made more delicious by the exertions of the day, and through our long attention to it and our songs around it as the evening came. It was a member of the group. As it slept, we lay down on the slope, and each discovered the night was too hot to sleep through, so we listened to deer move through it after the low voices of companions receeded into silence and crickets. We surprised ourselves to find everyone awake at 2 am, and then spoke and laughed. We woke in the morning, unsure of even counts of wakings and sleepings.

We left the mountain. We did not forget, but we awoke, or slept again, and so the time is not so much lost to memory as it is to focus. Perhaps someday I will have an even count and real reckoning of my wakings and sleepings since then, and fit the dreaming into new daily footfalls. But for now, I have pictures -- because of the water -- and so I can recall.

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