I woke from a dream in which I’d just broken a window. I was in someone else’s house, though lots of people lived there. It was an old house with lots of stairs and huge windows that seemed to reach into the sky. I’d opened it wide to let in some air but as I did a gust of wind caught it and ripped it from it’s hinge. I heard it crash to the ground and shatter to tiny pieces. I turned to my host and apologised profusely before rushing out to begin gathering up the pieces. (I heard myself say but what about the animals? Was I scared that they would cut their paws on the glass?) I found broken shards of pottery too and spent sometime holding them and then turning them in my hand. The sun shone.
I watched as two women began talking in the coffee shop whilst waiting for their drinks to be made. Have you been swimming lately? one asked. The other woman, rather fay, pale haired and skinned, looked a little bemused at the question, said that no, she hadn’t been for a while and then asked, what about you? Oh, yes, the other one replied, an altogether more robust specimen, yes, we went in yesterday, though it was cold. Oh, you mean the sea, said the other. Yes. Oh, no, I never go in the sea. Oh, I couldn’t. Though people do say it is very exhilarating. Yes, said the other, visibly losing interest in one whom she had assumed was a compatriot.
I didn’t get it. Am I disappointed? Not really. The money would’ve been nice but the weight of it, the expectations and the doing of it would’ve been a huge responsibility, that to be honest I’m not sure I want anymore. I want this, this freedom to explore, to see where my mind and my creativity takes me. But it is amorphous, unshaped, and that scares me. And where am I going to make my money now? That perennial question eh?
