All better now :)

Ah, *deep contented sigh*, that's better. I've fixed myself properly now. I had a bit of a malfunction on Thursday, but yesterday I took charge. I took myself into town in the morning, when all the boys were at their places of education, and had a tiny bit of retail therapy. All necessary - it actually wasn't procrastination (for once!). I bought a book of squared paper to help Thomas with his maths (Parents' Evening on Thursday - was very, very good and positive; Mrs Powell is wonderful and sensible and has nothing but sympathy for Thomas's struggle with maths. We have made good plans to help him, and Mrs P is very supportive). And I bought an Encyclopedia of Spirits. Yes, I have. An Encyclopedia of Spirits, you did read correctly. It's research, for my book :) I'm writing about faeries, elves and such (Tolkien-type elves, not Disney ones!), and have been noticing huge gaps in my knowledge of folklore and mythology. This is the book I've been looking for. It will hopefully give me a wealth of ideas for characters and little sub plots. I've been working on basing my story in faerie 'fact', if you will. It would have probably been easier to completely invent my own world and history and language, so that a reader couldn't question it too much. But that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to explore centuries-old supertitions and beliefs, and give them a link to the present. My kids believe in faeries, and so do I ;) The story is about what's been going on in the faerie world since most people stopped believing in them. There's not a right lot written about faeries though - other than passing comments or stories in history books - so it's been difficult to find out what people did actually believe a couple of centuries ago. This encyclopedia seems to be the missing link for me. I have high hopes that it can give credence to my story (yes, I do know that faeries are not actually real - I just want people to be able to get lost in the world I create while they're reading, and not find that things jar and bring them out of the book).

So, I took myself to Starbucks after the trip to Waterstone's. I got stuck into the writing-of-the-book for a couple of joyous hours. It was very productive. I did some brainstorming for a bit, and then started a new chapter. My story is getting nice and big and complex now :D Just what I wanted.

But what a difference a day makes, eh? It's a true sentiment, that. I was proper miserable on Thursday, but yesterday I woke up looking at the world from a different angle completely. It was weird to lose control of myself the other day, but I don't feel bad about it at all - I'm looking back on it now with interest. I can see what it was about and can file the rubbish away, just keep it in the reference section for use when I need to identify negative thoughts next time. Hopefully I won't need to use more than one filing cabinet for negative stuff. I'm going to need a bigger mind-office as it is to accommodate all the positive and floaty flowery thoughts I have!! (Blurgh - pass me the sick bucket!)

Oh, I also bought a Buddhist book called The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. It's a guide to meditation, and is about slowing down time and enjoying every second. All good. I started it yesterday, and it's excellent. I've been paying attention to my breathing today, and I'm not very good at it yet, but I can already see what an amazing thing meditation is. The whole thing is still rather bizarre to me, but I like it, and I'm going to stick with it for a while and see what happens. (I do hope I'm not getting preachy with the Buddhism - I'm not expecting anyone else to try it, but it's in my life right now, so ignoring it in my writing would be odd. Try it, or don't: it's up to you!)

Oh, one more thing - Sport Relief was last night. Now, those videos of suffering children put the whole world in perspective, don't they? Makes me see even more clearly that I have no right to be unhappy, and that I must always be grateful to be alive because nothing in my life will ever be as bad as it is for millions of people in the rest of the world.

Dream Flying.

Do you ever have flying dreams? I do. I love them, they are my very favourite dreams; but I don't have them often enough. I have a few flying dreams that I remember very vividly, and probably always will. One of them is particularly filmic, and involves me flying through an electrical storm looking something like Neo in the Matrix, wearing a long leather coat, and just being generally very cool. There are people pursuing me in the dream, and I end up shooting lightning out of my fingertips at them. It's a cracking dream, but I've only had it once (though I often think about it when I'm awake) and would dearly love to dream it again. Other flying dreams I've had have had much less of a story. I always begin the flying dream not knowing that it will be a flying dream. I'm usually running, and laughing - I think it's necessary to be in a happy place to have one of my flying dreams. Then the running turns into jumping, and in my dream I say to myself something along the lines of '*gasp* this is it! I'm going to fly, I'm really going to fly this time!!' and I truly believe that I am awake and am really going to fly. Often at that point I wake myself up by having a conscious thought, damn! But if I'm very lucky I will stay asleep, and the dream will build. The jumping gets higher and higher, and feels something like being on a trampoline, except that I stay suspended in the air for just that little bit too long and the ground doesn't give beneath my feet when I land. After a few leaps on the spot I start to move with the jumps, and jump further and further, higher and higher, until I just decide to stay in the air. It's an unbelievable feeling, it's so real to me. I know what it's like to fly, I'm sure of it! (Alright, I know that I don't really; I'm sure a human body would not feel weightless as I do in a dream, I'm sure it would feel very heavy actually.) Then the flying begins in earnest, and I'm away. I don't really know where I fly, it's not about the scenery in my dreams - though it is beautiful, rolling hills and patchwork fields and all that, inspired by the scenery around where I live, undoubtedly - it's about the feeling of flying, I get completely lost in the sensations that my body 'experiences'. I can feel the air stroking my skin, always warm. I know every part of my body, and can feel the affect that any tiny movement of the foot or the hand has on the direction I am travelling through the air. It's blissful, tranquil, yet thrilling at the same time. I have no fear of falling, no fear of being seen, no fear at all. It's what I would hope would happen to us after we die, to be allowed an eternity to explore and to see everything we were not able to see when we were alive.

Always, when I wake up from these dreams, I am disappointed that it was only a dream. But I smile to myself, snuggle back down under the covers and try to get back to it; I never dream it again after I've woken up. But in the morning I feel tremendously uplifted. In the Books of Pellinor that I talked about a few entries ago, one of the central characters, Hem, is plagued by nightmares and fears that prevent him from achieving restful sleep. But for a few blissful nights he is visited by a kind of spiritual being that allows him to rest and sleep peacefully for a few hours in safety and without fear. My flying dreams are like this. I don't have the nightmares and such that Hem has, but the flying dreams have such a restorative quality that I feel healed afterwards. Amazing.

But you know what else? I can fly when I'm awake now! Oh yes, I really recommend it. I once got frustrated at the lack of flying dreams - I haven't had one for a good couple of years, at least - so I decided to just lie down and see if I could imagine flying one night. It was good! If I want to I can feel the size of the world. I can see the whole of the shape of it, and feel exactly how big it is in relation to me. I can sense every person moving about on it, I can sense every mammal, insect, bird, fish, flower and tree. I can move about the Earth if I want to. I can think of any country that I might want to take a look at and in a moment I'm there. I can hang suspended over vast sprawling cities, empty deserts, steaming jungles and craggy rock faces. I can fly in close and stand next to people, see their faces in glorious detail, every beautiful wrinkle and blemish, and they don't know I'm there. I can see everything, and I'm awake.

Now, don't be worrying about me! I am not mad. I do know that it is not real, that I am imagining everything inside my tiny brain. But it's real to me at the time, and it's important to me, something that I love to do from time to time. I feel rather like Professor Xavier when I do this, touching minds! But it's not just about people. I first started doing this when I bought a postcard of a satellite picture of the Earth. I'm in love with our world, and I want to see as much of it as I can, and while I can't see it in reality, the next best thing is to imagine it. I don't think I'm meditating, because I don't really know how to do that - although, we have a Buddhist centre in Lancaster, and I'd love to visit that and just learn how to empty my mind and achieve a sense of clarity or a while. But I think my waking dream flying is probably something like meditation. It's an absolute joy to me anyway, and I just thought I'd share it with you.

It was Robbie Williams on the radio that made me think of these things this morning, 'How do you rate the morning sun... I drove to places you have seen...' Those lyrics made me remember my flying.