Secret Life of Daydreams

You have bewitched me body and soul. I love—love—love you.

One small sentiment

I went to heaven—
'Twas a small town,
Lit with a ruby,
Lathed with a down.
Stiller than the fields,
At the full dew,
Beautiful as pictures
No man drew.
People like the moth,
Of mechlin, frames,
Duties of gossamer,
And eider names.
Almost contented
I could be
'Mong such unique
Society.

Emily Dickinson

Words

Elsapatience

My life seems a tedious, stretched-out pattern.

Before she died, my mother had a book. It was her favorite book, all about places she could never hope to see. And there were pictures of these places as well.
When Mother died, all of her things were taken away. I've no idea where they've all gone. Her book was one of the things I tried to steal away with me. It wasn't just for the memory of my mother that I kept it; I was just as mesmerized by those glorious, far away descriptions as she was.

From Mother's book, I keep a tattered picture of the seaside, a long-ago forgotten coast. Sadly, age has taken away the beauty of the little watercolor picture, but the lovely, faraway dream of the place still remains every time I look. Sometimes it tells me that perhaps I have a hope that Mother never did. A very small hope, but still, it's there.

Cobblestones. What's wrong with grass? It's so much more pleasant under the feet. Especially bare feet. I confess I have this constant yearning to go out again to the grove, to my little garden, to my swing. Especially considering my almost daily chore of scrubbing the damnable cobblestones.
I've another. I confess myself horribly jealous of Princess Evangeline. The freedom! To go about wherever one pleases, any day, any hour. However, I content myself with my little garden, and the fact that it seems it has been made official, finally, that Prince Albir has been claimed heir after the death of his uncle. That ought to keep him busy. No time to scamper about in the garden.

Even as we gaze

Sunrise
sunset
Sunrise
sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

Sunrise
sunset
Sunrise
sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Words

Elsapatience

Why were my feet wet?

what I've seen and what I've told

Words

Albir Elderberry of Farwood

Father asked if I were ill when I told him I wasn't hungry. I wasn't ill; the truth is I just couldn't stand to be near him, or the Family any longer. I needed out. Just for the evening.
I slipped out into the courtyard. I suppose my hours of imprisonment in the house with father and uncle and uncle's grand counselors put me in a savage mood. And those stupid cobblestones were spotless again. I poured out a bucket of dirty water lying outside the kitchen windows behind the courtyard gate. It was a lame and a stupid thing to do, but for the moment, it satisfied me.
On my way to the grove, I happened to look up just as something white darted between the trees. Curious, I followed it. Perhaps it was just a bird. But then I lost sight of it through the thicker of the rose bushes.
I wanted to find that wonderful old oak again. I wanted, I'm sure, to be out of sight of everyone. To be alone.
I stopped short as I passed the wild roses.
There was a girl, dressed in white, swinging back and forth on the old wooden swing. She wore a bright blue ribbon around her waist, and no shoes on her feet. Her thick dark hair wrapped itself around her soft face as she swung back. It streamed behind her as she swung forward.
I suppose I was surprised--or mesmerized, or maybe just amused. In any case, I stood and watched her. I didn't even bother to wonder who she might be. She could very well have been a figment of my imagination, for all I knew. In one moment, she kicked up her bare feet and reached forward to touch a leaf just out of her reach. And suddenly, and in mid-air, she slipped off the swing and fell to the ground. I started. Had she fainted? Was she hurt? She lay on her back, looking up at the sky. For some minutes, she didn't move. Finally, I got up to see whether or not she were hurt. My movement made a noise that startled her. She sat up and looked frantically around her. I didn't want to be seen if I could help it, so I instantly ducked back into the bush. She didn't see me as she swept quickly past the roses and out of sight.
I'm rather superstitious, and perhaps I'm being haunted; I heard music again in my sleep.

Bridge of Sighs

Words

Elsapatience

I finished helping Cook peel the potatoes and clean and dress the chickens for dinner. Cook kept smacking me on the back of the head with a wooden spoon because I couldn't stop daydreaming. It wasn't my fault as Cook had no interesting news to circulate, and I am easily distracted.
Finally, Cook scooted me out of the kitchen, exasperated.
I eluded Thera, who I suspected was searching the House for me, in order to claim a favor.
I wanted to visit the gardens again. It was the perfect hour of evening, and the very air called me.
But though I'd worn a thick cooking apron in the kitchen, the whole front of my servant uniform was spotted and smelly. I knew Thera might be hanging round the washroom for me, so I very well couldn't wash the silly thing, else I'd never escape.
Reasonably, I imagined the Family and the other servants busy with the dinner I had helped prepare.
So I decided to put on my nightgown and slip outside. It was thick, and if I tied my special blue ribbon around my waist, it looked very like a light evening gown, or so I imagined.
Barefoot, and thoroughly enjoying the soft, cool air against my skin, I skipped through the courtyard and out into my garden. When I reached my swing, I giggled at the thought of Thera or Lady Verna catching sight of me, barefoot and clad in a nightgown. How very scandalous.
From hours of imprisonment in the hot kitchens, the breeze and the dusk and the soft, dreamy light put me in a very silly state, indeed. I swung so high I could just reach out and touch the leaves of the highest oak branch above. Then I slipped off the swing in mid-air and landed in the grass (non too gracefully). And then I just lay there, staring up at the kaleidoscope sky through the dark leaves.
I think I heard a snap somewhere off. Thank goodness, for it brought me back to the place and time. It would be terrible trouble for me if someone were to catch me in the garden here, or caught me on my way back in.
I left the garden with that feeling one gets after waking from a particularly pleasant dream and realizing it is morning.

Keane

Dream

July 27th

I really have no clue was what going on. I just remember trying to call somebody on my aunt's cellphone that had a plastic bag or a rope attached to it. We were in someone's driveway, and my cousin was dressed as a bridesmaid. I guess we were going to a wedding. Hm.

More words

Elsapatience

I'm going to the gardens today.
Oh, I'm not running away; I bribed Thera to clean the washrooms and scrub the marble in the Great Hall and the Chapel. She's not very clever and I bribed her quite easily with the divinity Cook saved for me last week.
Cook won't tell a soul, I'll be safe.
I dreamt I was in the garden last night. It was a soft, washed-out, half-light dream, the kind I always remember, since the oddest things prick me with that left-over dream feeling. It reminds me of a rose; a dark red one. I know that makes me sound very odd.
In my dream, I was swinging in the old wooden swing hidden between the grove and the over-grown wild rose bushes. It's my garden.

I saw a dove in the gardens. I'd never seen a dove before. Just as I'd never seen a falling star until the night I dreamt of my mother, and couldn't sleep.

Albir Elderberry of Farwood

I heard music in my sleep last night. I wasn't really sleeping. It was one of those funny half-sleep nights, in-between dreaming and awake. But I swear I heard music and it gives me a funny feeling. I suppose it's just because I'm sleeping in an overly-stiff bed in a strange house far from home.
But this morning I walked in the grove and I thought it wasn't such a bad funny feeling. I do like the grove. It's quite nice, not very well kept, and wonderfully over-grown in some places. Around some spots, the proper Royal Gardens have been neglected, and the flowers grow wild and have spread everywhere. I did always hate the stupid orderly rows of ram-rod straight flowers. Looks so much more like an army of soldiers than a garden of flowers. And the unpruned trees are brilliant. I climbed because no one was looking.
Discovered a swing. Hidden behind an immense bush of roses, hanging beneath an immense, fantastic oak.

Elsapatience

That stupid Prince Albir has discovered my garden and stolen my swing.
The devil take him.

Albir Elderberry of Farwood

Some of the servants in this blasted House are uncommonly rude.
A maiden scrubbing the courtyard stones splashed her bloody bucket of muddy water all over the cuffs of my leather boots.
Why must they scrub the damnable courtyard stones anyway, since the place exists out of doors and is constantly weathered and trod upon? No one notices if the damned cobblestones are spotless. Hmph. It is unnaturally ridiculous.

Dream

This was July 23rd.

This one definitely needs an explanation. My family pretty much doesn't believe in sleeping in. Ever. So, 9am this morning, everybody was up slamming doors and yelling and what not. I swear, my older brother has a voice three times louder than a normal human being. So I fell asleep again listening to Gregorian Chant, as I had no good classical music that would help me sleep.
I dreamt I was at college. But it was most definitely not my college. It was really strange. I went for a walk with some strange person and we walked around this campus, until we came to this... maybe it was a roof or something. I don't know. As we were walking we went past a kid, who I recognized as a real person from GAC, and apparently he lived in a trailer instead of a dorm, in my dream. By the time we got to this really high roof place, it was pretty dark and there were lots of kids climbing up. So I did too. It was incredibly scary, because people kept warning me that other students had fallen and died from trying to climb it. I thought for a horrible moment that I was going to fall. It was really dark, and I couldn't quite see what I was doing. But I managed to scramble up the thing. I have no idea what we were doing up there, and I don't remember thinking why in the world I would want to be up there. I was just there, for no reason at all. I remember dropping all my pencils down a crack in the roof. I also remember looking down the roof and seeing these students on the ground, dead. Apparently they had fallen and gotten dashed on the ground, smeared like a bug on a windshield, honestly. There was a girl with long blonde hair lying face-down on the ground. It was horrible. But no one else seemed to mind, they were all dancing and yelling and partying. Then all of a sudden everybody started leaving. I was left with a couple of people I apparently knew. I scrambled to grab my things, and realized music was playing. This Gregorian chant music was playing from somewhere. I guess it was my CD boombox, because I grabbed it and shut the music off. Then the people I was with showed me how to get down some stairs into the house that belonged to the roof. But I got lost in the house. It was really fancy and dark and quiet. Sitting on the couch was a man dressed as a jester. Then I ran into the apparent owner of the house who got miffed with me, but I told him I didn't know how to get out. He showed me two glass doors, but there were no steps or anything, it was just a wall with two glass doors and a thirty foot drop.
I don't remember what happened after that.

All my wildest dreams came true

Just some words

Elsapatience

I’m not that much of a pessimist. It’s really only something I was thinking of one day, while scrubbing the paving stones in the courtyard. I started by thinking, Why do the paving stones have to be scrubbed when they are constantly trod upon anyway? It is the courtyard after all, a partially enclosed section of the garden, and not a place in dire need of cleanliness. Scrubbing made my knees, my back, my hands all ache. There you see plainly the good against evil. It only evolved from there.
Apparently there is some gossip threading its way throughout the Great House. Undoubtedly, it started with Lady Verna (the most notorious of gossipers) and from there thread it’s way down to the bottom of the line, to us lowly servants. I was most likely the last one to hear it, and I had no one to pass it on to.
The gossip had to do with the King’s long waiting for an heir. When he and his wife despaired of producing a son, and feared marrying their daughter to a man outside the bloodline, the king began to search for the next in line. Supposedly, the position fell upon the king’s second eldest nephew-- son of his younger brother, Duke Elderberry. The eldest son of the Duke had gone into the church, and therefore was not eligible for er... heir hood. The second eldest boy was called Albir Elderberry, but now I suppose is referred to as Prince Albir, The Heir of King Gerald of the Kingdom Vistle. What a handsomely pompous title.
I heard all this from Thera, who is not always the most reliable source, and doubting its truth, asked Cook for assertion. So it is true, the King has found an heir, and the Royals can all let out their breaths in relief.

More gossip… that’s all that keeps the long monotonous days interesting. I heard it straight from Cook, and is thus perfectly reliable. Apparently Prince Albir, Heir of King Gerald of the Kingdom Vistle, Son of the Duke Elderberry, preceeding as Governor of the Province Farwood, is coming for a visit. Well, it shan’t be just a visit, for he is to be king someday, and must learn all of that royal nonesense. You know, all about ruling and drat. We’ll see if the boy lasts a day before trying to escape.



Albir Elderberry of Farwood

Hmph. Hear we are, second day of our journey to the royal palace. It is raining harder than yesterday, and the horses are all knee-deep in muck. The roads here are atrocious... they've been properly washed away with the constant wet. So now, it takes twice as long to make headway, and that knight, my uncle’s escort, says it will take another day to reach the Great House. Rats. The riding clothes that I’ve never worn before, along with the heavy wool cloak Mother made me wear, are all soaked and clinging to my skin. The cap that is too small is inadequate for keeping the heavy drops that especially fall from the leaves above, from running down my nose.
Hmph. Mother always says I complain too much. But she would too, in my situation. Father still hasn’t completely explained why we are on this ridiculous journey, why we are visiting my uncle and why there is a knight as our escort. I’m having a very funny feeling from all of this, and I really don’t like it. Thankfully, the bothersome rain that keeps falling on my face keeps me from thinking too much of it. Blessing in desguise. I wonder if someone will be able to get a fire started tonight, or if we’ll all have to hunch and huddle in our blankets to keep from freezing all night. Oh boundless joy.

Elsapatience of the Great House

Prince Albir, with his father and heralds and knightly escorts, and all his bloody servants and followers arrived this afternoon, a whole week late! Duke Elderberry explained that the roads washed out and greatly delayed their journey. Good lord! He has such a loud, whiny voice that gets higher and higher the more he goes on. I got to hear his complaints from the top of the second staircase past the great hall. Indeed, it is probable that everyone heard the fool, he was so horridly loud.

Cook told me the funniest thing this evening when I helped to prepare dinner. Cook says that Prince Albir doesn't even know that he is to be king! It just makes me laugh to think. What a shock he will have when they finally decide to tell him! The funniest thing is that he hasn't (as far as Cook knows) figured any of it out for himself! The originality of his great title fits the cleverness of his mind, I suppose. What a king he will be.
I for one would have guessed right away with all the to-do that's been going on for weeks that someone had big plans for me. And I would be jolly glad to get away as soon as possible. If I were that stupid, snooty prince I would get as far away as I could. But I suppose he wouldn't have the brains for that escape, either.
If I were Prince Albir, no one would make plans for me except myself.

Albir Elderberry of Farwood

I have a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. But why should I be considered? I am not next in line... am I? I can't possibly be the closest of bloodline, the king's second and least talented nephew. Doesn't he know how unsuitable I am? How untalented and careless? Surely not. And all these years I thought I was safe. I thought with all my poor abilities how surely I would be safe from any title other than nephew of the king. It... simply baffles the mind.
Hasn't quite sunk in yet.

Memorable quotes

Grace Polk: I'll see you later. I'm going to go... run with scissors.

God: Good is relative. Beauty's relative. Everything's relative. Except for me. I'm absolute.
Joan: I thought that was vodka.

Joan: Let's see a miracle.
God: How about that?
Joan: It's a tree.
God: Let's see you make one.

God: Stop underachieving. Stop squandering the potential I gave you. Have some pride.
Joan: What about humility?
God: Humility isn't actually humility unless there's something you're good enough at to be humble about.

Joan: What should we do first?
Grace: Ask your brother for the answers.
Joan: To be humble you have to be proud.
Adam: Wait, aren't those opposites?
Grace: Ah, ask him ask him.
Joan: No, no let's just break it down ok. Is there a chemical formula for twigs?
Adam: Uh
Adam: Cellulose is c6h12o6
Adam: Uh, I have an eidetic memory.
Joan: What's that?
Luke: Photographic.
Grace: He can barely remember his name.
Adam: Listen, I know a lot, I just can't put it all together.
Joan: Ok, what about a chemical equation for fire?
Grace: Wood doesn't actually burn.
Joan: That's insane.
Grace: What burns is the gas released when the wood gets hot. Therefore the reaction would have to be gasification, through oxidation reduction, then combustion.
Luke: It is so hot that you know that.
Adam: Dude, are you smart?
Grace: Just because I refute the whole formal-schooling-equals-knowledge crap doesn't mean I'm stupid.
Adam: Nice.
Joan: Ok, so what about gas?
Adam: Cha, like I know.
Grace: ...And Rainman back to underpants.

Helen: Number one... Andrea, work on your mother's voice before you try that out on me, and two: don't use a disease you can only get on a pirate ship.

Joan: You don't think she is right, do you?
Adam: Uh... I usually don't listen to what's going on unless I hear my name.

God: Oh Joan, it would have been so much easier if you just read the book. Now I'm gonna have to send you to the basement.
Joan: You mean like, Hell?
God: No, I mean, like, the basement. There's one in the school. Check it out.

Adam: I talk to angels.

Adam: Well, nice work Jane.
[He leaves, Helen looks at Joan]
Joan: He calls me Jane sometimes when he forgets that my name is Joan.

Joan: So what do you want me to fail at this time?
God: Now what makes you think you failed? You did exactly what I asked you to do - you observed.
Joan: Hmm! And what good did that do anybody? Ramsey's going to jail, Adam hates me even more...
God: Observation is a more powerful force than you could possibly reckon. The invisible, the overlooked, and the unobserved are the most in danger of reaching the end of the spectrum. They lose the last of their light. From there, anything can happen.
Joah: Okay. Fine, I observe Ramsey, his life is still ruined.
God: His life wasn't the only one at stake.
Joan: What do you mean?
God: There's Laura Eason, ninth grader. She plays the flute. She would have been one of the first to go,
[gunshot sound]
God: coming out of Orchestra at the wrong time. And Andrew Bayer - he would have tried to save his friend Lawrence DiStasi and lost his life... and Gavin Price and three other students in the cafeteria. And Mr. Harvey. And Ms. Schmidt in the library. And finally, Steve Ramsey himself. And for each of these faces Joan, there are twelve more whose lives would have come to an end today - lives altered forever by you. By the simple effect of being present, by entering the light, by joining the dance.

Just the best

"Do you mean to frighten me, Mr Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? Never fear, for my courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."
"I know you take great delight in expressing opinions which are not your own."
"Your cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, will teach you not to believe a word I say. That is ungenerous of him, is it not?"
"It is indeed, Darcy."
"Impolitic, too, for it provokes me to retaliate and say some of his conduct in Hartfordshire which may shock his relations."
"What have you to accuse him of? I should dearly like to hear how he behaves amongst strangers."
"The first time I saw Mr. Darcy, was at a ball, where he danced only four dances, though men were scarce and more than one lady was without a partner."
"I feel I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers."
"Should we ask him why? Why a man of sense and education, who has lived in the world, should feel ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?"
"I... I have not the talent which others possess in conversing easily with strangers."
"I do not play this instrument, so well as I should like, but I have always assumed that to be my own fault because I would not take the trouble of practicing."
"You are perfectly right. No one who had the pleasure of hearing you would think anything wanting. We... neither of us perform to strangers."
"What are you talking of?! What are you telling?! I must have my share in the conversation!"


"I have been a selfish being all my life. As a child I was given good principles but left to follow them in pride and conceit. And still I might have been, if not for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth."

Dream

Tuesday or Wednesday, July 18th or 19th. (I've got to keep better track of the day.)

I guess I liked this dream, since I didn't wake up crabby and groggy.
It involved, primarily, a guy at college whom I happen to have a crush on. Maybe that's why I liked it. I don't remember much of it, just the feeling it left afterwards.
We must have been in England. I only say that because it was just like the English countryside sort of thing I've always wanted to visit.
I think we were in a garden. There was an old-fashioned swing, and tall bushes, and a lawn, and flowers and little dark alcoves with impressive-looking statues. It wasn't very bright, kind of dusky and soft and pale and very sweet. All very Jane Austen-like.
I had my younger brothers and sisters with me-- or at least one of them. I think it was Bridget, my little sister, who's two now. She was being extremely cute and sweet. I think I was pushing her on a little swing in a little alcove. She loves to swing. I remember her sweet little curls going back and forth as I pushed her.
This boy, (I won't say his name for privacy's sake... or whatever, you know) walked by with some people I didn't know. They didn't talk to me, even though I'm pretty sure we were the only people in the garden. He was wearing a white outfit. I think it reminded me of the sort of weird outfit that fencing people wear. He noticed Bridget on the swing. He said something to her, and she was all cute and cuddly and whatever. He smiled. Then he noticed me, and looked a little bit awkward or something, and smiled. I don't think he said anything. And then he walked away to join his friends and I watched them sitting on the lawn some ways off, just pushing Bridget back and forth on the swing.
And that's all I really remember. Just being in that garden and feeling very happy and kind of dizzy.

Dream

I've been having the strangest dreams lately-- the strangest thing about them, as far as I'm concerned, is that they actually make a little sense. By that I mean, they aren't completely random and nonsensical--and by that I mean, they're representational, if you know what I mean.
Do dreams ever really mean anything? Or are they simply the result of your subconcious imagination taking everyday thoughts and experiences and mixing them up?

I think this was Wednesday-- July 19th.
I don't remember how this one started out.
I was at a school, or a meeting house or something, and standing in front of a muddy yard in the rain, walking up to a chain-link fence. There was a strange little girl there. When everything was dark and wet and dripping, she was bright and cheery and colorful, with a happy face and red curly hair, and a big red bow on the top of her head.
Then I was in my house, just coming into the livingroom, and there was an enormous thunderstorm. You know how you can poke your finger through rubber, but it just bounces back without making any kind of permanent hole or dent? Well the lightning during this storm was just like that--huge bolts of lightning poking right into the living room, almost touching the floor, and kind of bouncing back again. My older brother was in the room. He was the smart one, apparently. Wherever this lighting struck, he would quickly go and sit in that spot, since he knew lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. The lightning just kept coming and coming. I was the stupid one-- I ran around, kind of freaking out, and a lightning bolt struck my outstretched hand. My hand turned bright red--or pink, maybe. It shook like crazy. It hurt like heck. When I looked at it, there were these shards hanging right out of my thumb, like ripped blood veins or nerves or something. I remember thinking how strange that was.
I went outside. It wasn't my family's backyard. It was something from the country, with a little dirt round going round in a circle past the back door, and woods behind. Apparently, the Nazis were occupying. This didn't strike me as so strange, but it made me nervous. The president of the U.S., Matthew Broderick, apparently, tricked the Nazis by pretending to send our troops south, when they actually went north, and ended up meeting them in a circle and taking them out. Whilst all this was happening, a rich wealthy, blond haired woman took my brothers and sisters and I in her limo--or maybe it was a plane, but then again it could just as well have been a boat or something. In any case, she gave us all this fancy chocolate. There was this box made of chocolate and wafery-stuff, with little chocolate envelopes. I remember the woman was very sad.
Then all of a sudden we were back at my family's house, except it wasn't our house, it was strange to me. I didn't like it. We (my sister and mother and I) had to babysit these two horrible little bratty girls. I couldn't stand them. My mom left somewhere, and the minute she was gone, I told the girls to get out of my house and walk home. After that, a friend of mine from highschool, a nice guy I went to the prom with, came over with his father (who didn't look a thing like his real father) and told me he had his liscence. Apparently that was good, because then he could take me to a dance on Tuesday. He was wearing a football jersey--or maybe that's what he really looked like. I don't know.
There was a girl, older than me, I guess. I had joined some kind of club or something, and she told me they were having an important meeting on Tuesday, the day I was supposed to go to this dance. I had a fit and told her there was no way I would go.
Everything that came after that was all muddled up. I don't think I could describe it very well.

Puddleglum

"Don't you lose heart, Pole," said Puddleglum. "I'm coming, sure and certain. I'm not going to lose an opportunity like this. It will do me good. They all say–I mean, the other wiggles all say–that I'm too flighty; don't take life seriously enough. If they've said it once, they've said it a thousand times. 'Puddleglum,' they've said, 'you're altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You've got to learn that life isn't all fricaseed frogs and eel pie. You want something to sober you down a bit. We're only saying it for your own good, Puddleglum.' That's what they say. Now a job like this–a journey up north just as winter's beginning, looking for a Prince that probably isn't there, by way of a ruined city that no one has ever seen–will be just the thing. If that doesn't steady a chap, I don't know what will." And he rubbed his big frog-like hands together as if he were talking of going to a party or a pantomime. "And now," he added, "let's see how those eels are getting on."
-The Silver Chair

Steve McCurry: Afghan girl, refugee camp, Pakistan. 1985
(National Geographic)

Blegh.

I hate summer sometimes.

It's freaking July already! Where is all my time going?