Sable brushes and alligators
A few hours after I woke up, I tracked down an out-of-print inking guide that I’d heard good things about and ordered it.
Then I remembered a dream I had last night, where my favorite #3 pointed round brush wouldn’t snap back to its point. That is brush death; it’s advised to test brushes for this before buying to prevent getting stuck with a runt of the litter.
Then I read a review about the book I’d just ordered and found out that it’s very specific to brush techniques (ie: not a lot of details on dip pen inking).
My dreams are starting to do that thing again; they like to drop hints if I’m watching for them. The skeptical side of me says that I only notice it because I want it to be that way. I don’t mind that; I appreciate these coincidences without being especially amazed by them.
A few years after my grandmother passed away, I had a dream that she was standing on a pier over a river, alligators circling near the shore. An impossibly bright orange light shone from the opposite side. To this day, I can barely swim to save my life. But I can’t fly in waking life either, and that never stops me in dreams. I jumped in and fought my way past the swarming alligators, and reached the pier. As I started climbing toward Grandma, I woke up.
Not long after that, I was wandering around North Kamloops with friends. We ended up at the north shore of the Thompson River, and I didn’t recognize the pier until it matched up with the blazing orange lights of the pulp mill on the other side of the water. The pier matched that from my dream precisely, and for a moment I was truly surprised that my grandmother wasn’t standing there and beckoning me.
The dark shadows making figure-eights on the water’s surface gave me chills, until (and for a few moments after) I realized that they were beavers.
Grandma spoke limited English; there was always some Danish in the mix. Even though I don’t understand a lot of Danish yet, it’s still very natural and comforting for me to hear spoken Danish. She always said I was silly. At least, I think that’s what she was calling me. My Danish-English dictionary defines pjattet as “silly”. She would think the same of this dream nonsense, not to mention my reckless brush-buying habits.
