Secrets of the Universe, Side Order of Waffles

Over the years, I’ve asked many peo­ple, but no one seems to dream like I do. Most nights I have ter­ri­bly vivid dreams – some­times weird, some­times won­der­ful, some­times incred­i­bly sad. And occa­sion­ally these dreams seep into my day and for a short time my per­spec­tive shifts or my impres­sions alter.

Rarely, rarely have I had a dream that filled me with awe. But sev­eral nights ago, I did. I dreamt I was lying in the grass in my back­yard and the clouds cleared from side to side, like grey cur­tains. I was sud­denly aware of the night sky. There was no light pol­lu­tion, and the entire sky was filled with stars. I could see the tremen­dous depth of the universe.

While I watched, I noticed a clus­ter of stars in the very cen­ter begin­ning to spin, and then after a moment, a ring around those stars also began to spin. But at a dif­fer­ent fre­quency. And then another ring, and another. Until the night sky was a mass of neatly orga­nized rings of move­ment, all together, but all unique. So intensely beau­ti­ful and in my dream, I was filled with a pure won­der. I pressed my hands into the cold grass as I was falling for­ward. Falling for­ward. Then… snap like that, I woke up.

Fas­ci­nat­ing how the mind can trick you. Cre­ate a fleet­ing sense of amaze­ment from noth­ing. And how quickly it can fade, cat­e­go­rized as silli­ness, replaced by nor­malcy. Calls from down­stairs for eggs and orange juice, and if I was feel­ing par­tic­u­larly domes­tic, some waf­fles. Okay, I said, and I went to the kitchen, made the bat­ter. Poured it over a hot grid­dle. A pat­tern of squares inside squares.