Inner Voice Sends a Plan

In that half dream state, when you dream yet are aware you are dreaming, my sleep Self showed me an image. I was in this small culture-poor, rather lonely little beer and gas station town where I have lived since hurricane Katrina. In the dream I was up every day before the summer heat, biking the mile to their wonderful Main Street, to breakfast at a little cafe. I carried my writing journal in my leather back pack. This way, my sleep Self pointed out, you exercise, you get up and going early, have some breakfast, and get back into the habit and hard work of daily writing. 

"Hmm. Good idea," I said to myself. "Donno why I didn't think of that. "

My unconscious must have been remembering a time years ago when I lived in a beautiful neighborhood among the lakes, with a roommate who danced, played bongos, painted, and laughed. She ate big salads and strange things from the health food store, she shone, she kept herself slender and strong. She had bi-polar disorder so it's not like these things came easily for her. She suggested I buy my first mountain bike. I could write forever about the adventures of me and that bike. I still miss that special roommate and friend.

I had a lucrative business writing job at a company I wasn't well suited to but because of it I could do a lot of other things. I had a stern writing mentor I adored; a serious writing group; I swam; I canoed. I had family who came into town regularly and we'd giggle and play. My roommate and I would do impromptu out -of-town picnics. We'd pick a town we'd never been to, drive there and picnic. Or we'd rent a lake side cabin for an off season day at incredibly good prices.  

I wasn't dating then-- I think maybe I was losing my good health. Or...I was lying low after the disappointments and blows of a break up with a whiz kid. He and I had such a good time when we were grad school friends.

 I did walk a block to a little gingham cafe, every morning, to write. I always had an egg salad sandwich. Funny I still remember that.

So, post-Katrina there's no way I can move, but I could create this daily routine, which would bring me better health, and some happiness.

You might wonder why I didn't do more about these things earlier in Tools. Well...for me things don't sink in neatly as I learn them, but some take hold right away, others sink in later. I had five billion million trillion things to address or change. I figure I've done a couple thousand of them.  Sometimes I have felt elated with empowerment and hope. Other days I still feel sad with loss, and stuck.

So...getting my lazy AWAKE self to put this Dream Plan into action, is the thing.

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Tags: inner voice, exercise, writing, Friendship, Katrina, routines