“I think one of the most precious things we can do is also think about dreaming or the imagination as a support structure. It is something that is rudimental to our existence.” Rory Pilgrim

When I was 10 my brothers and I built a raft. I have no memory of how we started, although I suspect it was from laziness:  a derelict half-boat set adrift by some other sailor on the lake and found by us among the pontoons. We captured it just in time to lash the rotting planks back together and haul new wood from land to make it last another summer. I can see us wading waist deep, hammering, knotting rope, balancing on one foot and falling into the lake, and somewhere in the vivid picture of the waves and the light glinting is a thick red book bobbing against the wood like a tiny tugboat. Books do not float, so I do not know how this could be. But there was a book, it was red, and it was discussed. There was some acknowledged mystery, and I am sure if I asked either of my brothers what book it was and what author they would say they remembered nothing but the pages: how limp they were with the weight of water but how the book refused to sink.

Tonight, contemplating travel across an ocean, I sat down to confront paralysis about my itinerary in England. Every week I stare at maps; I draw [Read more…]