Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 10, 1995 TAG: 9507100033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I'm told this is disconcerting.
I can understand how it would be. The other week, when I went in to check on my sleeping nephew, he opened his eyes, looked straight at me and said, with assurance, ``I found it.'' Then he went back to sleep.
Found it? Found what?
When I asked him the next morning if he'd had any good dreams, he said, serenely, ``No.''
But now I can't shake the feeling that somehow, in the middle of the night, snuggled down in my sleeping bags on the floor of my library, that little boy found Enlightenment.
In the morning, when he awoke, it had slipped from his grasp. But somewhere in the calm hours of the night, he'd touched the Meaning of Life. And the faint glow of Illumination still showed in his eyes.
A friend tells me I live in the ozone. ``Way out there,'' she says. In the outer reaches of the imagination. In the Twilight Zone.
That would explain, I suppose, why I would suspect a child of finding Enlightenment in his dreams rather than, say, the little red truck he'd been looking for before he went to bed.
My friend tells me that I should hold on to anything that keeps my feet on the Earth, that keeps me grounded in reality, that keeps me thinking about the concrete.
``Balance your checkbook,'' she says. ``Go to the grocery store.''
I believe she may be right. So I dutifully keep the yard mowed. I make biscuits and watch the Braves on TBS. I invite the children around to spend time with Aunty Monty, and when they're here I play basketball with them, walk in the woods, watch endless rounds of ``Tom and Jerry'' cartoons, eat pizza and suck on Freezee-Pops.
And still - still! - when one of them talks in his sleep, I suspect him of finding Enlightenment in his dreams. Maybe I can't be brought back to Earth.
When I laugh in my sleep, at what do you suppose I'm laughing?
I remember only one laughing dream. In it, my brother was telling me all the same old jokes, but in his inimitable way. I couldn't stop laughing at him. I laughed and laughed.
Until I woke myself up.
But what of those other times I've laughed in my sleep? Those other dreams I don't remember?
It suddenly seems to me entirely possible that I've found Enlightenment in my dreams, too. That it's been a joyous occasion, a conversation with angels. An absolute delight!
At least for the space of time it takes me to wake myself up. Then, there I've been, unremembering, back in my same familiar bedroom, my same familiar life; and when I've been asked why I was laughing, I've had to say, ``I was laughing?''
At those times, does the faint glow of illumination still show in my eyes? If I were to stare straight at my questioner and say ``Look in my eyes, do you see Enlightenment there?'', he'd likely grunt and tell me to go back to sleep. ``Have another good dream,'' he'd say. ``One you can tell me about.''
The dreams I remember, the ones I could tell you about, are the ones from which I wake myself screaming.
``It's just a dream,'' I comfort myself then, as I'd comfort a child having nightmares. ``Just a dream. Nothing more.''
But it might be something more after all.
At least, that's my opinion now. The opinion of a woman who spends most of her time in the ozone.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB