I usually remember my dreams but I woke restless today, sure that I had settled something critical in my sleep, feeling the inspiration slip away. I kept my eyes closed despite the dizziness which plagues me in the early morning and only clears when I fix on something overhead, solid, unmoving. Nothing doing: whatever brilliant realization had risen from the quagmire of my old and tired brain vanished in the wispy light of dawn.
Coffee cleared the fog a bit though not enough to withstand the rattle of the radio. So here I sit, in silence, wishing for another chance; an hour or two in dreams, to find the answer, to even narrow the problem. I feel my shoulders ache; a gnarly bit of tension hugging the back of my neck. With my eyes closed, I will the brilliant calculations to creep back and reveal themselves. If anything my mind empties further. The mug of coffee grows cold. I surrender, finally, and go upstairs to shower.
It’s the twenty-eighth day of the thirty-third month of My [Endless] Year Without Complaining. I’m no closer to enlightenment, but life continues.
I keep a little notebook by the bed to write down dreams as soon as I wake sometimes. Perhaps your dream was of going west!