Tag: dream

…because you make me dream…

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Into the car with the passionate taxi driver. “You stay young forever,” the man told me, whipping around moodily, “because you look good.” And drew a meditative face with his hand over his face… “Kind,” he said to himself, “you seem kind. I speak English to you,” he said, “because you make me dream.”

— Patricia Lockwood, Will There Ever Be Another You: A Novel (Riverhead Books, September 23, 2025)

Notes:

  • Some real nuggets in this book but regrettably cannot (NOT, absolutely NOT, unless you are a masochist) recommend this book.
  • NY Times Book Review by Dwight Garner: “A Novel That Captures the Agony and Absurdity of Covid Brain Fog. In “Will There Ever Be Another You,” Patricia Lockwood recounts the pandemic’s devastating effects on her life.”
  • Image: Boston Globe by Greg Hoax

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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And often, to fall asleep, I think of a great white bird. It is bigger than an airplane, its wings are wide and strong. I think that I am lying nestled in the hollow between one of the wings and the gentle great back, and I feel the wings very slowly lifting and falling as the bird carries me.

And on the back of this great white bird, with wise dark eyes and a noble long bill, I fly over the country. The feathers of the bird are downy, and keep me warm and dry. And below us the mountains and the rivers and oceans stretch along endlessly. There is a green, rolling patchwork of farms. And the wings beat beneath me.

— Lydia Millet, My Happy Life

Notes:

  • Book review of “My Happy Life” titled “Happy Talk” by Jennifer Reese, May 5, 2002, NY Times
  • Photo of Gull by Eric Kanigan, December 4, 2021 at Darien Beach.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Sweet Dreams (40 Years Ago!)

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In 1981, Eurythmics released a debut album, “In the Garden,” that went nowhere, but its follow-up in 1983, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” unlocked America for them. The video for the title track was a constant presence during MTV’s early years. Stewart and Lennox were suddenly everywhere, glaring mysteriously from magazine covers, staring from videos in arch amusement….The success of “Sweet Dreams,” the fourth in a line of underperforming singles from their sophomore album, surprised everyone, especially them. “Obviously ‘Sweet Dreams’ is just a huge life-changer,” Lennox says…”it’s just played endlessly. ‘Sweet Dreams’ isn’t even a conventional song … it’s like a mantra. It just repeats and repeats. It doesn’t have that structure. But there’s something in the song that people clearly identify with, whatever they’re doing, you know, they’re having a celebration or somebody scored a goal or it’s a birthday.”

—  Allison Stewart, Annie Lennox beguiled us in the MTV age. Now she calms us down online. Nearly 40 years after Eurythmics hit it big with ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),’ the singer keeps her chin up in a world of anxieties (The Washington Post, June 30, 2022)

T.G.I.F.: You inhale the soft cool night

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7/15/44 [New York.] You have to enjoy the weather always. Walking home from Sixty-First Street on Second Avenue, eleven beautiful black blocks. (The moon is not, the lights are, you are, your feet with the spring in them, this is youth, now!) You inhale the soft cool night, you gaze on the lighted bar doorways fondly. Your shoes, for once, are comfortable. Your head is filled with a number of things… with the youth’s grudging appreciation of the splendid night, and with the consciousness of health, future, potency. Breathe deep! Your lungs are still functioning perfectly, your thighs do not shake too much, your calves are resilient, your toes eager. Every muscle is obedient (taut for an instant, then couchantly relaxed), every dream will come true.

— Patricia Highsmith, “Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995.″ Anna von Planta (Editor). (Liveright, November 16, 2021)— Patricia Highsmith, Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995

Photo: Mike Kononov via unsplash

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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(He) lived a Yeatsian dream life where peace came dropping slow.

— Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Notes:

  • Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 5:51 am, March 4, 2021. 32° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”