Becky Wecks: The Dream Police

Becky Wecks is a member of the Friday morning feedback class. She is writing a memoir about her experiences with an amazing, unusual old woman that Becky helped care for until her death.

Becky wrote this piece in response to a writing prompt I borrowed from Deena Metzger's excellent book Writing for Your Life. This was the version I gave in class: "Imagine that the dream police have come to wipe out your memory. Everything you do not write down in the next ten minutes will be lost to you. Everything you want to save, to remember, write it down now. Go, you have ten minutes."

Here is Becky's response:

I love laughter. I love tears. I love the stuff in life that’s happening beneath the surface. I love the twinkle in someone’s eye when they own a secret joke. I love the look of love a mother has for her child--the goofy adoration between new lovers. I love old people who can still tell a good joke--who can laugh at old age and death--who aren’t afraid of being old. I love smells--the smells of good food--the smells of nature--trees, dirt, rotting seaweed, salt water. I love mountains and desert and I love the sea. I love the sound of children playing--the chatter of a child who knows how to play alone.

I love men who don't make you feel stupid--men who know how to love someone beside themselves. I love fat laughing Buddha--nuns and monks wearing saffron robes, bald and smiling and beautiful. I love the smell of candles and incense and tuberoses. I love strong black coffee and soft pillows, quiet mornings, blank journal pages and Pilot G-2 pens with lots of spare cartridges. I love books, stories, fairy tales and romance and true crime and drama--historical fiction, memoirs, biographies and fantasy. I love Dumbledore and Gandalf, hobbits and pipe smoke--brandy and cigars and big wide bare feet.

I love men with big shoulders and wide backs--strong arms that can wrap all the way around. I love my kids. I love their laughter and their stories. I love the people they love. I love them thoroughly. I love all the joy they gave me when they were little. I love chubby arms around my neck, soft round cheeks pressed against my face, the warm weight of a child on my lap. I love reading stories out loud. I love being read to. I love movies that make me laugh and cry and dream.

I dream of writing. I dream of having a kitchen and food in the cupboard. I dream of hiking in places I've never seen, of dancing, of finding a soul-mate, of being a soul-mate. I dream of creating--sewing and planting and knitting and sculpting and making music. I dream of being away from the sadness of this house. I dream of being able to stay here and not be sad. I dream of being able to help my parents without stumbling under the weight.

I dream of travel, strange food, being lost, being in awe--looking and listening and tasting and smelling. I dream of feeling the delight in life--in the mundane--in the smallest of stuff. I dream of being a delight to other people. I dream about all of it--the good and bad, the grit and the cream, the fear and the success, the beginning and the end. How can I say it all before the Dream Police come?