Staring out the window and dreaming of dreaming.

People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball.
I'll tell you...
I stare out the window and wait for spring.

--Rogers Hornsby.

Staring out the window: malady or magic?

I think staring out the window is part of the magic of humankind. Staring out the window, or at the fireplace, or at the surf or the back lawn...it's all the same: fertile terrain for the imagination. (That's why staring at the television doesn't do it: there's no room for the imagination, we are the passive recipients of sound and images conjured up by others' imaginings!)

I think there should be 15 minutes a day  devoted to staring out the window...for every schoolroom, office, factory, hospital or home. Our brains need time to muse, digest, reflect, and to create--time to take facts apart and reassemble them in day-dreamy disorder, then reorder. Then, it's time bring in something else from another realm: stir, taste, repeat!

Look what happens when we dream--some is rehash, but some is strange, new, alien--I dream of faces and places I know I've never seen, of events that never occurred, of magical transformations, and of possibilities that would be inconceivable (yes, that word does mean what I think it means!) in the waking state. I'm reminded of the famous solution to the structure of the six-carbon molecule called benzene: there was no explanation for how six carbon atoms could occur together with only six hydrogen atoms. The chemist Kekule was baffled. No way. Didn't add up. Period. Until...a dream, of a snake with its tail in its mouth, a dream that worked its way into his waking thoughts--sha-zaam! The benzene molecule is a ring! (Okay, it's a geeky illustration. Tough! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kekul%C3%A9 )

Once I dreamed of an Englishwoman who spoke fluent Latin; no, effort-less Latin. She was a regal lass with dark hair, tall and slender and beautiful and utterly unaware of the power of her presence. This lady WILL appear in a story, but, thus far, she's only appeared in a dream. But, she is going to come to life and speak in the story that I shall pen. It'll be new, alien, and--buh-bye, gotta go write her into existence.

From dream to reality--10% inspiration. 90% perspiration.

On reading Homer's ILIAD.

On reading Homer's ILIAD

I take some small pride in having read

   a tale that speaks of doom and dread,

a tale of warfare, love, and death

   tale of gasping, dying breath.

I traveled back in time, you see

   to Grecian warfare, breathlessly

describing gore with all due diligence

   and though some fought with innocence

the Gods descending, meddling

   their selfish agendas peddling;

heroes dying, some surviving

   mankind's lot: ever striving

Fighting fate, fighting doom

   all within my living room

I shut the book, pent breath release

   I'm back home, and all's at peace.

----(dls...if you hadnae guessed.)

Okay, that's my take on the Iliad. I found it repetitive and dull, breathless and flowery, overblown and underplotted. I found it tedious to read and exciting to look back at--I just read a story that's some 2,700 years old!

I feel enriched and wiser, more in touch with some of the deeper roots of western culture. Hmm, I guess the doc was right--I swallowed the tart-tasting medicine and it really was good for me.

Here's Robert Browing's take on THE ILIAD:

robert browning "development"

http://www.telelib.com/authors/B/BrowningRobert/verse/asolando/development.html


After reading Browning's poem, I'm all the more pleased to have read this epic tale, since the Iliad plays a part of our history and culture, on which modern literary roots feed. To whit: the movie TROY, 2006, was a retake on the Iliad.

Thinking as a writer--hmm...I looked at the book first of all from a modern viewpoint: hence, my harsh critique above. However, if I step outside our modern context and try to view it in its own context, as much as is possible from a distance of 2,700 yrs...well, it's epic! In the original Greek, it had meter but did not rhyme, yet, the mark of an educated man was the ability to recite the Iliad (and its sequel, the 400 page Odyssey) from memory!

Boring analysis, perhaps, but that's what I'm learning. And, doggone...it's fun!

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"It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks."