In the first dream, I drop my computer, and when I open the lid, I see there is a little plastic bit on the edge that has broken and the computer shows only data from my phone. Is life a series of accidents that feel personal? When did my computer become an independent thinker? All of a sudden, I hear a far-away whisper. Someone is speaking in another room, and I can hear them through a wall. It’s me, telling myself to wake up: “All you have to do is open your eyes, and poof, your troubles will be gone.”
It’s 1969, and I’m at the wheel in France. I hit something, and Bruce winds up in the hospital. I have only just learned to drive, and the car is a stick, and another time, backing up on a street in Italy, I bump into a clay flowerpot outside a restaurant and crack it. We get out of the car and pay the owner. He’s standing with his arms crossed and an apron stretched across his wide stomach. I remember hitting the pot more than what I did to put Bruce in the hospital.
He’s lying in the road. People have come out of their houses to help us while we wait for an ambulance. I don’t remember blood. I don’t remember the way he was hurt. His head? He’s stunned? Before meeting Bruce in France, I had sex with a boy in London. I had sex to make sure marriage wouldn’t end my life. Why aren’t I the one lying in the road? In the hospital, the nurses wear hats with big wings. Bruce feels European because the nuns serve wine with lunch. This is a good memory.
In the second dream, Richard and I are standing on a hill. Suddenly, our car has a life of its own, and it rolls down the hill, picking up speed. We reach out our hands, as if we can stop making the same mistakes. The car crashes into the garage and keeps going. I can’t see the damage to the car or to the garage, and again, up the hill, a voice waves its hands at me and says, “None of this is true if you open your eyes.”
After Bruce came out of the hospital, we drove around Europe for three months. He’d planned the trip. It was exciting not knowing how to do everything. I don’t remember anger in Bruce, not in France, not in other countries. I don’t remember being angry at him. He wasn’t the kind of person who made people angry. I had told him about the boy in London. In those days, you told each other things like that.
It took a long time for us to see each other after we parted in our twenties. We were in our seventies, I think. We met at the sundial at Columbia and walked slowly to the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam Avenue. We walked slowly because Bruce walked slowly. What the hell! I think he had waited all those years because he didn’t want to tell me what he saw when he looked back. I think he wanted to spare me and at the same time tell me. He couldn’t think of another way to be with me.
Something faded. The blood drained. I had a hard time feeling the sidewalk under my feet. It was a little like when he started sleeping with another woman, and I didn’t know what to do with my life after that.
What if, in looking back, you thought you were in a good relationship with someone who, in looking back, thought they were in a bad relationship? You have a happy life made possible by not understanding what’s going on. I have to tell you, I feel a kind of pleasure rethinking the past. I was neither mistaken nor not mistaken. Every time you open your eyes, the clock starts again.
In the past, I would feel a little explosion of insight about myself. It smelled like one of those gunpowder caps that spark when hit with a rock. The insight was fake. Insights purport a finding that appears previously hidden. Another kind of self-reflection exists, and it is always undergoing revision.
The other day, when I pulled up my shirt, there was a tick above my waistline. It was hard for Richard to get the tweezers on it, and when he did, he twisted it clockwise instead of counterclockwise. I was looking down and checked myself to make sure I had the direction right. Over the years, I’ve grown fond of the way Richard isn’t sure which way is right and which is left. I see a lovely set of wires in his brain, not caring about connecting. I see an independent thinker.
As a vampire, I’d be good at coming out of the shadows. Last week, on the ride back from the city, Richard and I listened to Mendelssohn’s “String Quintet No. 1 in A major,” composed when Felix was 17. At 17, I left home for good. At 17, Richard married a girl from his village in Leicestershire. I watched him at the wheel. He has a good profile.
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Passing the hat.
If you enjoy the stack and want to see it continue, please take a turn at support. It doesn’t have to be forever. It’s easy to break up with me.
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Art Lab #3
Over the weekend, Richard and I hosted Art Lab #3 at our house that grew into a fuzzball of fun from the talent and camaraderie of
Libby Hodges, and . In one session, writers interviewed each other with a series of questions and built pieces from their notes. The questions they asked each other were:Tell me about a time you pretended to be something you were not.
Tell me about a time you went far out of your way to give someone a gift or someone went far out of their way to give you a gift.
Tell me about a time a time a time you said Yes when, in looking back, you wish you’d said No. Or tell me about a time you said No when, in looking back, you’d said Yes.
You are welcome to these prompts!
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Treats for paid subscribers.
Our April Zoom Conversation on Comic Techniques
is the most requested recording we’ve made. We offer 8 comic techniques you can use in your writing, with prompts for practice. If you would like a link, please write to me at: lauriestone@substack.com.
The Next Zoom Conversation
Is on SATURDAY May 31 from 3 to 4 EST. To RSVP, please email me at: lauriestone@substack.com. A quick way to lend one-time support and attend the next Zoom is to tip your server with a $4 coffee: ko-fi.com/lauriestone
The Next Breakout Conversation
Is on Sunday June 1 from 3 to 4 EST, where you can speak about a project you are working on and receive feedback, please email me at: lauriestone@substack.com. There is a cap of 10 participants and an additional cost of $30.
More Extras for Paid Subscribers
If you would like to book time to talk one-on-one about a project you are working on or for guidance in gaining confidence and freedom in your writing, please email me at: lauriestone@substack.com.
If you would like to book time to talk one-on-one about STARTING AND GROWING a Substack publication please email me at: lauriestone@substack.com. I can help you through the software and approaches to gaining readers.
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I love your layers. Dear Laurie.
You are a writer through and through.