Time and life shook hands and said "goodbye".
I had a dream last night. It wasn't what you could really call a "good" dream, except on a comparative scale of what usually parades through my head most nights. It was really odd in the fact that most mornings, I'm glad to be awake and generally do what I can to put whatever out of my thoughts. This morning I woke up, hit the snooze button, and tried consciously to pick up where I had left off.
It's a little hard to describe it right now, but I was somewhere really deep inside the world, in a mineshaft sort of tunnel, but it was exceptionally wide and tall. It seemed like the sort of thing you'd find in those post-apocalyptic movies where humanity had burrowed their way underground to live. Everything was lined in panels of steel, and I-beams framed anything I laid eyes on. I remember I had come there looking for something, and there was a gigantic, old book in my hand. I found two people who I can only describe as bad and worse - they weren't good guys. Without really talking, we all understood we were lost, but looking for something, so we uneasily made our way together through the tunnels and corners, further into the ground.
I started to read from the book. I can't remember the story now, but as soon as I started reading it, I knew it but I had never seen it before. As we walked, I began reading to the two other men, and telling the story of a world that was metal and stone through and through, with a giant engine at its heart. Sometime awhile ago, the people who had created the world buried their creation in earth and water, until debris from the universe had caught up in its gravity and spun it into a proper planet. The book seemed to be like the epic of creation, full of history, accounts of tribes and gods, and so on. The account itself seemed to be something that was passed down from some divine creator and was passed around quietly by those in the know. Stories were told within the story: Some people learned the secret of the core of their world, but went nuts after learning that such a big lie existed. Other people wrote accounts of how it wasn't the knowing that made you lose your mind, but the constant, soulless thrumming of the engine as you approached it.
There were two loud, metallic, hollow thumps as I read this part. I noticed that without realizing it, I had beat my hand against the metal walls to emphasize the story, and the three of us had stopped moving. A second later, there was a deep, shaking echo to the noise I had made. We moved on - myself and the two men that I was leading to kill the heart of a machine.
Then the alarm went off.
As someone I know noted recently: alot of people seem quick to say things like "piss on 2008, I'm glad it died." They tend to be the same people who mention this every January 1st, but I guess I can't really blame them. Leaving a year always seems like an exercise in looking back and thinking to yourself, "holy shit look at all the bad things that happened." I tend to fall for this sort of thinking more often than not, and I was wondering today if I've just managed to take the exceptional for granted. We live in interesting times, but how interesting can something feel when it's the tenth odd or remarkable thing that's happened that week? There's a tendency to think, in a falsely thankful way, "Well I guess it could be worse," huff and roll your eyes, and tell yourself you're trying to appreciate what you have.
I think over the course of 2008 (and possibly even 07), I've gotten into the habit of putting myself on hold for other things. I haven't done things I want to do because I think I have enough of my shit going the way I want, maybe I can back off things in favor of committing to other people and things. And now I've gone from making that the exception to the status quo - biting my tongue when I want to say or do something because my own needs, wants, or expressions feel spurious and thin. Where has it gotten me?
We spent New Year's at the abode of the Dawn and Brian. Good times were had, and I was very happily educated. For those out in the internetlands, did you know sake is rice wine? I certainly had no clue to this amazing nugget of trivia, but now I am enlightened. Those Japanese, so clever. It was a little odd at one point to look over the room and think to myself - Four years ago, did I have any inkling that the only people that I would see at New Year's again were Kim and Nikki? It would have felt impossible if you would have told me then. I hear the card tournament I started isn't even held in KC anymore. That by itself doesn't mean much, but it gives me an oddly strong sense of how transient alot of shit can be.