"The sight has the appeal of the purely passive, like the racing of light under clouds on a field, the beautiful dream at the moment of being dreamed."

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Dillard is talking about the running water under the bridge she crosses. But I fail to grasp what "the beautiful dream at the moment of being dreamed" must mean here. I try to imagine Tinker Creek, to set my mind in the natural context. But I cannot. Because in another dimension, under a different light, the moment of being dreamed is more beautiful than the dream itself. 

It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out.

Heraclitus

Paul, Chapter Two

            I was reading Kafka crossed-legged on the bed. It was ten. I knew I had to sleep but he was playing Liszt downstairs. I closed my eyes and counted the notes. I imagined his right foot pedaling. It was two when I woke to the sound of rain. His pillow was soft and cold. I walked out the room holding Kafka, turned the hallways lights on, and stood by the doorway rubbing my eyes. He was coming out of the guest room, I thought. He called my name. Was I all right? I’m okay, I told the wall. He took my Kafka. Something blinded me. It was not the light. It was his hand. Did he wake me? No, I told him. And then he hugged me. I blinked inside his hand. He never took anything from my hands, always was the one to be hugged. He smelled of coffee and he was shivering. I became lost. I must owe him so many apologies. I felt Kafka drop on my foot. I took away his hand to see, but he leaned on the wall, his head on my shoulder, shaking, so that the lights went off. I had not the faintest idea why he was awake at two, or why he had come out of the guestroom where there was nothing except my grandfather’s old rocking chair. I did not know what made him cry. He was saying my name, brokenly and incorrectly. Paul. Did you have a bad dream? I’m here. Please don’t cry. Paul? He was crying aloud. Tears and saliva and perspiration felt warm on my shoulder. I did not know what to do. I wanted to pat his back, but the wall was blocking. I held his hand. He hiccupped. Let’s go sit on the bed, I told him. Kafka felt wet under my bare feet.

            Please don’t cry. I said please like it would stop him from crying altogether. It was a word that became almost obsolete. It was thought as an antiquated symbol of man having to ask for something. But sometimes I would use the word, say things like “Please eat,” although he ate well. I got him a box of Kleenex and touched his ear. I waited, like he has always done with me, until he was done crying. I listened to the rain. I did not say anything. I studied his shirt become polka-dotted, thought of the day we married when I cried in the bathroom because everybody told me I was making a terrible mistake. Except grandfather, of course. He was always on my side. 

Paul

I wondered if ever he was tired of waiting for someone to talk to him first. Because he always waited. In the hallway walking toward him he would not smile nor wave nor say hi unless you smiled or waved or said hi first. I remember in class he never asked questions and never answered them.

            When I met him after college, he was reading the book I was looking for. It was called Jane Eyre, which went out of print and there remained only a handful of copies left. It was a rare luxury to have such a book in your possession.

            After we married, he would tell me about his dreams he dreamt every night. They were all strange and ethereal to me. I became jealous of him whenever in those few words he told me how real everything appeared inside his eyes. As if nothing was real inside this world. I never dream. So listening to him always made me want to go to bed, to see if something happened inside my own eyes. There is a reason why I never dream. I am an insomniac and in those sleepless nights I write him letters. Letters about what I would like to dream about and whether he is still waiting.

            Dear Paul,

            It is raining outside and I can hear the raindrops quietly drumming the ceiling. They make me think of your dreams, how it would rain at six in the morning and you would stand in this room, holding a yellow umbrella. “It was raining inside,” you told me. How all the books on our shelf dripped of black liquid because the rain was washing away the ink.

            I wish I could dream about you, to understand the parts of you that I fail to understand now and before. To find out why you often sing and only sometimes talk

            And at the end of every letter I would write, Until when will you wait? Then I would quietly place it on the piano next to his dense sheets of music. We never talked about the letters, but I knew he read them and kept them somewhere.

            I think there is something behind or beneath him that he avoids to tell me. I know he has a remarkably good memory that sometimes scares me. He remembers every meticulous detail, about a face or a sound or anything else. I imagine it must be immensely difficult to live a life like that. To carry with you the memories and dreams and times you hardly speak of.

            There is no distinct reason why I decided to marry him. Rather, I wanted to read Jane Eyre with him, loved him because he did not mind being together. He liked to be hugged and was always hungry. And in that way, he was still a child. He used rare words like “lovely” and “quaint” when he spoke. No one talked like that anymore. I loved him also because I did not want him to wait. To love him was to stop him from waiting.  

An elegy haiku for Robert Frost

Who else can take on
Two roads and a pathless wood
For once, than Someone?