When the front passed through last night, and the air cooled, I slept ...
In my dream, Richard and I drove into a town with colorful old buildings, showcase windows cluttered with the wares sold inside. It was like the small town I grew up in, except the wicked decrepitude of my home town had been replaced by benevolent wisdom.
Richard dropped me off at what looked to be a coffeehouse to write, while he consulted a mechanic to check out a noise the car made. I stepped inside the coffeehouse, and found myself in a large space with worn wood floors, weavings and carvings and peacock-hued jewelry. A table toward the center displayed baked goods, paper plates, and plastic forks. I had expected the goodies to be behind the counter for sale, but people walked up to the table freely after they'd bought coffee.
"We're having a party," a tiny woman with white hair and glasses smiled, brandishing a fork. "Please, join us."
I'm sure I hesitated, and a middle-aged man with white-blond hair said behind me, "No, really. You're welcome." I felt welcome -- I had never felt welcome anyplace, any time in my life.
Richard walked in. "Richard, we have to find a way to live here. This is where I was meant to be."
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In this current age, we hold utopia suspect. Dystopia sells, because it speaks to our mood. Dystopia helps us say, "See? Those are my scars, the ones I hold secret. This is my damage." We all are damaged, we all need to speak our damage, but we walk through life feeling we have no home.
We mistrust utopia. To be that loved, to feel true communion, bears risks -- what if they disappoint me? What if they change their mind, what if they quit loving me? In reality, everyone we love disappoints us and changes their mind because they're as human as we are. But utopia is the moment where we find ourselves loved, frozen in time.
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(You're damned right I'm going to use this in my writing.
I immediately became at home in the utopia of your dream. It is the love and acceptance that every human longs for. To me it is what it would feel like to be in Heaven and to commune with God. Where our past mistakes dont matter all memory of pain is gone and only in the present is where we live.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever added a utopian setting or concept in any of your writing? It could be an interesting avenue to try. The past is sometimes remembered as less complicated and utopian like. But the reality is that most any time in history had its own problems.
This is Lanetta.
The thing about utopias is that they never stay effect, because people aren't perfect and perfect isn't interesting. That being said, one of my series takes place at an intentional community based on principles of nonviolence and seeking truth, and they don't always do a good job of either!
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