musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

I am the best of them that speak this speech, were I but where ’tis spoken


It happened again! Every so often one arrives like a silent telegram in the night: a word. The first one I remember came to me about a year ago: anabaptists. But instead of the usual meaning of adults being baptized, in my dream it meant enslaved shipboard children…

Then came tenebrous a few months later. I didn’t want to forget it, so with a shaky hand, I wrote it down in the moonlight flooding through my window on a notepad I keep by the bed. I had a vague idea of its meaning, I suppose, but the word was not associated with any contents of the dream I could recall; perhaps its meaning of shadowy or obscure fit with my memory of it, though.

Sometime later -weeks, or months maybe- ametrous surfaced in the night, although by the time I wrote it down, it occurred to me that it might be hypometrous, or maybe hypometrus instead. I suppose it didn’t matter, because despite an obsessive internet search the next morning, the closest approximation suggested that at least one of them meant some sort of cerebellar dysfunction in which voluntary muscle movements fail to reach a desired goal. Maybe it was a warning not to try to write the word in the dark…

Ahh, but last night the word was therolyte -or was it the American English spelling therolite?-these things are never spelled out in my dreams. This time, however, there was a sort of accompanying video but, alas, I could not capture it in words and the only remnants I could remember were of a few coloured strings dangling from somewhere. Of course, the closest I could imagine to the word was theremin: a ‘musical’ instrument composed of two high frequency oscillators producing a sound when a hand is waved in the circuit between them. But I don’t remember any sounds, just the word mixed with soft, muted colours. I’m not really keen on theremins, to tell the truth, but the dream seemed rather peaceful.

Still, although I have to admit that the nocturnal arrival of these almost-recognized words is interesting, much like an SMS from someone not on my contact list, I have to wonder who is sending them. And why? Are unexpected, and unacknowledged night-words delivered to others as well, or are they sent exclusively to old people as early warnings of waning cerebral connections? Caveat-words?

Whatever, I welcome them as gifts. After all, in retirement, never look askance at novelty, eh? And never seek to know for whom the bell tolls, for obvious reasons. But, perhaps seeking reassurance about my otherwise unexciting dream life, I decided I had to check with some aging friends to find out whether I should be worried or welcoming of strangers mumbling words through my bedroom window in the middle of the night.

Sometimes, when I need some company and the coffee shops are just too full, I go to the library to see if there are any people I know there. It’s sort of like the Wednesday morning coffee klatches at the Food Court with my aging male friends, only quieter. Less argumentative. And the library is not just a men’s club with all of its tiresome neediness and braggadocio. In fact there are usually quite an assorted collection of people my age who have nothing to prove except that they still enjoy reading quietly; still enjoy the pleasure of whispered words.

There were a few elderly people scattered around the reading room, enjoying the furniture and quiet conversation when I arrived; I decided to try the far end of a couch occupied by a woman in a dark red dress and iron grey hair. She was sitting by herself as she slowly turned the pages of the book on her lap. I didn’t recognize her, but she seemed to have a friendly face. Perfect.

She looked up from her book and welcomed me to the couch with a little smile on her face. I could sense that she was lonely, or at least hungry for words. “I see you walking along the road most days,” she said, the smile blossoming like a flower on her face. “I’m Mattie,” she said, extending a wrinkled hand. “You’re G, aren’t you…?”

I nodded, surprised that so many people in the neighbourhood seemed to know my name.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” she added, the smile unblemished by my not recognizing her. “I kind of thought you were a word person, though: you always look so deep in thought when I drive by. I’m glad to finally meet you in person.”

I nodded in agreement and thought this might be an ideal time to ask her about word-dreams. I mean you can’t ask just anybody whether they’ve ever had a word dream. I smiled and attempted what I hoped was a humble  shrug. “Speaking of words,” I started hesitantly, “Sometimes while I’m on a walk, I’m trying to figure out why a word I didn’t even recognize came to me in a dream… Not in a nightmare, or anything, and it doesn’t happen all that often, but it has been occurring more frequently lately… So maybe that’s why I occasionally look so preoccupied… Strange, eh?”

She tilted her head like my mother used to do whenever she felt she needed to console me about something she wasn’t sure she understood. “You mean when you wake up with a word in your head…?”

I nodded hopefully. Maybe she felt it wasn’t so unusual after all.

“That’s how I often solve crossword puzzles,” she said. “I have my afternoon nap and when I next open my eyes, the word I need is almost sitting in my lap…” She sent her eyes over to rest on my face to enquire if that was what I meant. “I’m a writer -like you, I’ve heard,” she added, calling her eyes back to rest on her lap. “Sometimes it’s more than just a word or two that greets me when I wake up, though: it’s an idea -a solution to a problem I’ve been wrestling with for an essay I was working on.”

Her face softened at the thought. “The unconscious part of our brain never sleeps, I guess; it’s always churning things over, rearranging thoughts in mysterious ways. And I don’t necessarily have to be asleep for it to nudge me…” She stared at me with a growing smile. “I came to the library today to leaf through some books for a fresh idea, but you can’t force these things…”

She suddenly reached over and touched my arm, and I had to blink at the impulsive gesture.

She sighed loudly as she withdrew her hand. “But just riffling through a book at random doesn’t always work, unfortunately. You have to surrender, and let your mind as well as your eyes wander…”

She suddenly sat up straight and transfixed me with a motherly stare. “Thank you G,” she said and touched my arm again, but this time with a purpose. “Would you mind if I wrote about our meeting in here today?” She searched my face again with her eyes perched firmly on my cheeks. “No names, of course -just the chance encounter, and what it might portend…”

I smiled and nodded with curiosity. “And what might it portend…?”

She chuckled and shrugged. “I don’t know yet, G; I never know until I start writing -and sometimes only when I approach the end of the piece.” Then, unusual for an elderly lady I thought, she winked at me. “Maybe your mysterious dream-words are trying  to tell you something. Maybe it’s not the meaning of the words that are important; just the fact they needed to grab your attention…”

I stared at her for a moment, uncertain what she meant. And then, suddenly, I thought I understood. There was a poem I remembered by William Cowper, the 18th century English poet and hymnodist, and although he was talking about his God, it described my Muse beautifully: God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform; he plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm. 

“Thank you, Mattie,” I said and then quietly sighed as new thoughts jostled excitedly somewhere inside my head. They always start like that…

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gozzter

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