Every day meaningless words in meaningless combinations are ripped from me by the will of another. I worry that there will be — that there are — no words left for me. No thoughts, no emotions, no imagination, and no way to express myself or, worse, nothing to express. I see now how difficult it is to mix the real workaday world with a creative or thoughtful life. How difficult it is to shed or bury or repress all the baggage of daily life, the anxieties, the worries, the pressures, the stresses, the resentments, and to be free to think, to feel, to create. The inner life is both denied and suffocated by the exigencies of reality, by the weight of humanity and its constructs, but mostly by its will and desires that are so different from mine.

My days are a veil that tries to obscure the beauty that lies hidden in this inner world, but at times the sleep of early morning pulls the veil aside to let me see some, just a little, of what is possible. Endless forest and valleys, houses in both town and country, indoor waterways, mythological creatures evil and good, magical waterfalls, oceans that embrace but do not drown, trains unrestricted by tracks, roads that lead to the unimaginable, and my own newfound ability to see forever and to soar forever — and just when I am highest, when I see most clearly, when I have found an inner world that is rich with the unexplained and the inexplicable, the veil falls back into place even as I fight it, and it is another day of anxiety, worry, pressures, stresses, and resentments. Just as I am about to understand, understanding fails. “To sleep, perchance to dream” . . .