Dreams

 

A friend of mine tipped me off to a fine article on Polish mountain climbers.  One short line stuck during the morning read stuck in my mind, "They are captives of their dreams."*

We should all be captives of our dreams.  We should all have more Walter Mitty in us and less Mr. Potter (It's a Wonderful Life).  It is dreams that make us go, that carry us through the mundane parts of life, that make the mundane parts tolerable.  It's what we all have in common.

a large beaver scent mound

I put in at the top of the Great Swamp, the water still high, with the sky partly cloudy and the air still cool in our long drawn out spring.  Even before the canoe is loaded the blocky head of a beaver swims into view not more than 20 yards down stream.  It scopes me out and then casually dives and disappears.

I head out.

Wood Ducks

And I dream of setting out to discover the source of a distant river.

And I dream of canoeing my yearly supplies to my wilderness trading post.

And I dream of bears and caribou coming into view at the edge of the forest.

I live those dreams and I let those dreams live, and I see a bit of my soul.


*Michael Powell, NY Times, May 9, 2017 "Scaling the World's Most Lethal Mountain, In the Dead of Winter"