Socked In

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing." - Gertrude Stein

January is sluggish and dreamy. I've reached the point in the winter where my industrious worker bee ways are mired in a soupy fog of cold, sleepiness, and the desire for reflection. There are projects and ideas for projects whirling in my mind as always, but my body and spirit are saying, "Not now." Oh, bless you January, you inherently restful and philosophical month. The flurry of holidays is over and spring's call to sew seeds of all sorts is months away. Here in January I have time to think about what I've done, what I want to do next and what it all means. Here in January, I notice the quiet thoughts that I often miss when I'm busy. I have fully given myself permission to loaf.

January is the quintessential month of being. Perhaps it's because, as Garrison Keillor so eloquently put it on last night's A Prairie Home Companion, "nature is trying to kill us," and our goals become no more ambitious than surving the weather. Whatever the case may be, I wish myself and all of you a completely unproductive rest of the month.

The Strangeness of Dreams

Last night I dreamed that I was on a road trip with my mother, my co-worker Dorothy and two other women that I don't know. I'm not sure who was driving, but my mother and I were in the back seat of a red convertible driving through the desert. We were listening to a radio station that played old country music songs and singing along. Then a song by Johnny Cash came on that I didn't know.

I've been thinking about that song all morning, although I am able only to access the vaguest suggestion of what it sounded like. I have become fixated on the strange conclusion that I draw from this experience: either my subconscious mind knows songs that my conscious mind does not or my dreaming brain has the capacity to create new Johnny Cash songs.