Snarl

         During my latest hospital stay, I had fever dreams the likes of which I’ve never experienced. The dream consisted of a tangled mass of thoughts in my head. They weren’t clear, like lines of gibberish in an ever-shifting knot, though I could tell they were stressful, anxious, paranoid. I kept trying to pull the lines away from the mass, as if they were strings or wires, but they kept becoming tangled together. I should emphasize that I couldn’t actually see them, they were just thoughts, though they seemed like they had a physical form. I knew I would not get well unless I could extricate them all, one by one. I needed desperately to do so, it felt horrible not to be able to. The dream seemed to go on for hours. I felt like I was in hell. 

        This morning I had another dream that again consisted only of thoughts, though these were much clearer and not stressful. In this dream I was thinking about my art, and how I am not a disciplined nor terribly skilled draughtsperson. I thought about the fact that after all this time I don’t really know how to do anything, and yet sometimes everything works out and I make something that looks pretty good. And I thought to myself, the key to my moving forward as artist hinges on two questions, which I jotted down the moment I awoke: 

Are your triumphs accidental?

Are your accidents repeatable?

        Of course, if you’re trying to repeat something, it’s not really an accident, is it? But you can make an accident more likely by setting up conditions that are unstable and could have unpredictable results. None of it’s really all that profound, but I was grateful  to my subconscious for giving me something to think about other than my goddamn foot. Surgery is still not scheduled. My doctors are not returning my calls. My disability claim is still under consideration. I haven’t worked or gotten paid in a month and a half. The knot gets pulled tighter and tighter. I fear I’ll never be able to undo it.