World Dream Bank: Drill to Flow

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Drill to Flow

Dreamed 2011/4/8 by Wayan

THAT DAY

I just read In the Realm of the Immortals by Tamora Pierce. Daine, who talks to animals better than people, finds out her dad's a nature deity and her mom's only dead on Earth; he wangled her a job as a minor goddess. The animal gods help Daine, and the dreamgod gives Daine mute, indirect tips, but all the big-name gods are stuffy--distrust Daine even after she saves their butts. But Pierce argues "What do you expect? Most gods are embodiments of order."

THAT NIGHT

Thunder-debate. At last
the bureaucracy of gods
grant me a bubble of life

as a pianist: after mere
subjective dec-
ades of drill drill drear

when I a melody enhear,
my fingers like
bone cobras strike

true! The blackandright
keys let the song flow,
fill rooms. I'm nearly pro

and in just twenty years!
My songs play as they
wailed to be played.

And then I wake to feel
the flow all flow away.
Back to composing for

clumsy bearpaws, Thor
of ten flesh hammers.
Crude chord whammer

after half a life of
drill drill until...
Yet my dream-life-detour

whispers now I can
understand play,
if not quickeasily--

for a godpanel granted me
to feel song pour--
that play can be.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

Clumsy: true. After decades I still can't play my own songs! Just bang out block chords. Complex chords, in complex rhythms--but my fingers can't do melodies, runs or trills, and probably never will.
Panel of gods: I was mad at Tamora Pierce's pantheon! After Daine saves the realm of the immortals, they call HER trouble and ban her so she can't even visit her parents! Here, I get what she deserved: a skill-building reward. A subjective life decades long where I can practice my weakest skill: dexterity. Why not? Bill Murray got that in Groundhog Day...
ACTION: try playing this way, mindlessly--let my fingers play notes I audiolize/enhear. Errors at first, but if I get my head out of the way, and persevere... for a few decades...

NOTE TWO YEARS LATER

Well. Things have changed. I started suspecting I had Lyme disease, and took a heavy regimen of antibiotics and antiparasitic herbs. Along with my other symptoms my clumsiness disappeared! Only intermittently, so far, but it's a strange feeling to acquire within hours an inner pianist who plays whatever notes I hear in my head--and then, a day or two later, to lose that session player again, and go back to playing every note consciously, your fingers pushing through oatmeal. Not the Oatmeal of Inadequate Practice, but the Oatmeal of Neurological Impairment.

Like waking up sober to realize you were drunk for 45 years. And just as you start exploring your unfamiliar brain, your drinking buddies come by, pry open your jaw, and pour the liquor down.

LISTS AND LINKS: weird dream beings - gods & goddesses - gifts & generosity - life-paths - music - hands - disability - frustration - perseverance - mastery - dream poems - Pierce, Tamora - same dreamer, same night: Jerry Brown's Law - chronic illness

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