I am asked “what is your dream?” by my running partner as we are running. They have just told me their dreams, which are achievable and non-earth-shattering. It is quite a question for two people moving through the dark together. I find myself faltering for an answer.
For the past year I have been trying to live with just myself by peeling off dreams layer by layer and inspecting each of them. What are they? Do they protect me? From harm or just from reality? Are they illusions? What happens to the ego when life dips and turns and you do not achieve your dreams? Are you a failure? A tragedy? Or is life trying to teach you something?
These are newly formed thoughts. Incoherent. My dream skin still peeling. Shedding. Not ready. I wish I could have journalled about this first. I try to explain myself. Then my running partner spots a bamboo pit viper in the middle of the path. We move it off and continue running. Then I spot another bamboo pit viper on the path. It slithers off on its own, as does the question of dreams, which is not picked up again by either of us.