Friday, April 24, 2009

The Perfect Post

Sometime during the night I wrote the perfect post. It was lyrical, precise, elegant. It described how I’ve been feeling perfectly – in about six or eight sentences. I should have gotten up and written it down but I was half asleep.

Maybe I was dreaming.

I remembered it mid-morning, somewhere between the relay games and sno-cones during field day at school. Not the exact words, but that it had happened. That I had put words together in my head that were just right, just the way I wanted.

At 10:00 a.m. I couldn’t remember a single sentence.

Maybe I’m a different person at 3:00 a.m. than I am during the day.

Maybe it’s that there isn’t any noise then. There isn’t anyone needing me. I’m not feeling pushed and pulled and wanted or taken for granted. I’m not awake enough to let self-pity sneak in or to remember what it was I was worrying about when I fell asleep.

Maybe 3:00 a.m. is when I believe in myself the most.

Maybe I’m just dreaming.

20 comments:

Rebecca said...

I know EXACTLY how you feel. That's happened to me a million times.

I love your last two sentences. We all have a particular time. A time when there is silence outside and inside of us where we can see ourself truly.

Great post.

furiousBall said...

no shame in that, in fact i think that makes the realized perfect post all the more special

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

I think you managed to get a great post out of forgetting your great post.

Lisa Wheeler Milton said...

I've done that before. It's so strange when the words were just there, and then they melt into the ether.

shrink on the couch said...

Have done the same.. sometimes late at night, sometimes in the shower My memory keeps fading so I attribute it to that. Supposedly memory is enhanced when we "sleep on it" but it's interesting so many of us find this to be "not so."

Kate Coveny Hood said...

Wait - is this like when you hear the funniest joke ever in a dream. And then agonize about how you can't remember it the next day. But then time passes and you have a dream about the funniest joke ever and you actually DO remember it the next day.. And it doesn't make any sense.

This sounds very different, but it's the closest I can come to a middle of the night comparison. I have moments of genius 10 times a day (year) and I never remember any of them. I tend to assume it's like the dream jokes - and if I tried to actually write about them I would be kind of disappointed.

the mama bird diaries said...

That always happens to me. Makes me nuts.

Jay said...

I work at night, so 3am is familiar to me. I wonder if my equivalent is 3pm...although I don't think I'll feel special having an afternoon epiphany.

Anonymous said...

I think 3 am is when we feel the most vulnerable. I know I tend to think very concretely then, about mistakes, regrets, grand plans that will make my world better. But then sleep comes again, and I wake up the same old apathetic person I usually am.

Sad . . .

52 Faces said...

They do recommend keeping a pencil and paper next to your bed. I've never been that disciplined though.

Hey Twilight came about during an overnight dream. Now she's a millionaire.

Anna Whiston-Donaldson said...

I used to keep a pen and paper by my bed for these moments. Now I just go back to sleep. LOVE this post!

Jen on the Edge said...

I've done that numerous times. I used to keep paper by my bed and would scribble thoughts during the night. In the morning, it always illegible.

Anonymous said...

I always come up with great stuff in the shower, but it goes down the drain before I get it on paper!

Jennifer S said...

I have done this so often. Or have written a great song in a dream, then it's gone in the morning.

I'd say you wrote a mighty damn fine post in your waking hours, though. Loved this.

Tricia said...

I think it sounds like you were not dreaming at all, but fully awake.

Leanne said...

I do my best blog writing when I'm in the car. I've never gotten one written out yet either....

Texasholly said...

Ugh! I know this feeling so well. I have started to jot down words, but even they don't help the next day. I am absolutely BRILLIANT in my own mind.

Nora said...

I wrote one song in my life--one. And it was just like that. I lost it by breakfast and never wrote it down.

Cynthia said...

This happens to me ALL the time! Then I wake up...blank:P

Ash said...

Folding laundry does this for me - I'm guessing it is also the stillness of the activity. For some reason, everyone seems to disappear at that moment.

I think we both need to buy tape recorders - what's the 21st Century equivalent? Leaving yourself a voicemail?