As a result of nearly 10 years on a suicide/crisis hotline and 7 years with a teen anti-drug, anti-alcohol program called Operation Snowball, I am aware there are too many websites extolling the virtues of self-injury, eating disorders and even suicide; and not nearly enough offering a place of refuge and hope. Based on an essay I wrote nearly ten years ago, I am adding such a place: “The-Dream.us”. The original essay is also posted on this blog.

Imagine for a moment you have returned to your childhood. In your infancy, at an age that precedes memory, you were given a blanket, which, in the intervening years, became your constant companion. You ran to find it every time the world came at you in a way far more complex than your innocence could understand. It comforted you every evening as you prepared to enter, with great trepidation, the world of dreams. It protected you throughout the night and greeted you every morning. Some mornings you found it looking up at you from the floor, carefully positioned to keep the monsters at bay…under the bed and in the closet!
One evening, as you lie in bed caressing it, you note with alarm and sadness your faithful companion is aging, and with an increasing lack of grace. Its stained and fraying body seems somehow no longer up to the task of fending off the evils of the night. With a feeling of emptiness, you carefully set it beside you, afraid you will soon have to say goodbye to your friend and face the world alone.
That night, you are visited by a dream of incredible proportions. Lying next to you, where you set your worn blanket, is an exquisite piece of cloth that appears to extend as far as you can see in every direction. The patterns and colors, which moments earlier seemed dull and lifeless, are more beautiful than anything you have ever seen…or even imagined. As you examine it closely, its magnificence continues to emerge. The patterns are in a continuous state of flux. And as beautiful as the colors and patterns were when you first saw them, they become even more beautiful by the moment—the colors are more vibrant, the patterns ever more complex and interesting. The longer you stare, the more extraordinary is the sight in front of you.
As you examine the changing patterns more closely, you notice millions of small bits of color emerging from the interaction of the threads. Most dissipate quickly, with others emerging to replace them. But a few seem to remain longer and grow larger than the others.
Suddenly, you see a vile color emerge and, instead of fading into a pattern, it grows, seemingly out of control. Without warning this blood-red stain is spreading across a large portion of the cloth. Momentarily you wonder how you might stop its desecration of so many beautiful colors. Unexpectedly, you witness an amazing transformation. The blood-red stain is not destroying the other colors! They interact over time—blend to create a new ever more extraordinary palette. Crimson edged in gold. Infinite shades of amber. Purples and oranges like you never thought possible. You notice some of the original vibrant colors emerge unchanged, and for a split second, rather than rejoicing at their salvation, you are disappointed they too did not discover a new beauty by blending with the original stain.
You run for a magnifying glass to study the unfolding detail of the intricate patterns. You are amazed to discover that the patterns that look so magnificent from a distance contain millions of fibers and colors you truly dislike. You notice one particularly stiff, coarse fiber damaging those around it, and, without warning, the fibers let go of their mutual embrace and a tear races across the fabric threatening to rend the piece in two. Once again, to your amazement, the tragedy is instantly reversed as the cloth “heals” itself before your very eyes. And, even though you have no way to know for sure, it is clear the way in which the fibers reconnect adds flexibility and strength greater than had existed previously.
Then you are awake—back in your bed, as the morning sun streaks across the room. Almost magically, it caresses your blanket. With the sunlight streaming down on your old friend, you see it anew. Every shared adventure is written there in the folds. Every tear you shed for a lost toy…every hug you shared with your parents…every experience of sadness, joy, loneliness, love and pain…is there. Suddenly you see a brilliance arise from your very life itself. The worn blanket actually represents the millions of experiences that are now woven into those worn threads. And while they looked dull and faded, when you look closely you discover the colors that came from your life experience are actually complex, vibrant and extraordinary.
Then you notice a bloodstain from the time you skinned your knee and you remember the dream. And you wonder…
I have read many books in my life, and always viewed the time spent dwelling in the pages as no more than a conversation between me and the author. I have been wondering recently, however, how those moments are made possible by far more than just two individuals. How much more remains a great mystery.
No author can arrange words into meaningful thoughts without the voices of teachers breathing their influence into the subtleties of the wisdom. The teachers in my life not only held up a candle to illuminate new ways to understand the world, but also held up a mirror to enable me to see something within to which I might have been blind; given me the gift of self-understanding. As I read, it is stunning to consider the thousands of voices speaking through every thought as an author sits at a keyboard or with pen in hand; the author, midwife to wisdom inspired by those who have come before and articulated through the author’s unique life and experiences.
And reader, it’s useful to remember that I comprehend the world through unique lenses life has given me. Those lenses, too, have been ground and tinted by thousands who have helped me birth the language of my life. I see through a grandmother who gave me unconditional love; a Math teacher who helped me learn about learning; a thirteen year-old on the suicide hotline desperate for words of comfort and reassurance; a wife who remains my most loving and helpful critic; teens at Operation Snowball who have helped me peer into my blindness; the homeless and disabled who teach me the limits of my ability to come to their aid. The list goes on and on. With each new experience, the language of my life becomes more complex and nuanced, and I understand others in new ways.
But the moment of meeting between me and an author is not limited to the thousands of voices that speak through them and those that shaped the language through which I listen. The book itself could not exist without hundreds who felled trees, turned them into pulp and paper, and those who carefully printed and bound the pages. There were those who critiqued, edited and refined the author’s ideas, and thousands who distributed the volume to warehouses, booksellers and eventually to the hands that cradle and read.
But it is short-sighted to suggest that this moment of meeting contains only the wisdom and efforts of humanity. What of the miracles of nature that preceded them? What of the fibers and ink used to reveal the words, thoughts and wisdom. The fibers emerged when raindrops from the heavens and a beam of light from a star collided with seeds buried in the Earth to create new life. If the inks are oil-based, the molecules you touch as you turn the pages could literally be from mammals that lived millions of years ago.
And finally, take a moment to look at your hand. Each molecule you see, and each one you touch on every page, were, billions of years ago, part of an ancient star that exploded, coalesced into the Earth and became the trees, inks and humans that made a moment of meeting between author and reader a reality.
William Blake once wrote, “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” What you might have thought, moments ago, to be simply a community magazine, you might now see as infinity in the palm of your hand.
As I am gifted with one more new year in my life, I hope to see more of the moments of 2013 as infinity in the palm of my hand. And to know that, as many ancient traditions suggest, if we listen carefully…and perceive deeply…each moment contains much, if not the entirety, of the Universe.