Drifting toward an endless sea

Since I do not have any recent photographs of myself on a raft (my last one burned in a grass fire when I was around twelve or thirteen), I drafted this 1920 painting by N.C. Wyeth of Robinson Crusoe on his raft to illustrate a dream I had a few nights ago. Of course, the raft of my dream was not laden with supplies and was on a river flowing through a desert, but I think this painting will serve the purpose just fine. The paramount question of all this might be: Who is sitting, unseen in the painting, behind the mound of supplies on the raft?

This time around the horn

I have been experiencing a variety of dreams recently and, although there seems to be few around here who like to comment about possible interpretations, here comes still another one:

I was floating down a river that was neither deep nor wide, and the land all around was desert -- rolling, wave-like, barren hills of sand dunes. I was looking ahead to where the river emptied into a delta with many streams, and then coursed its way into a vast sea beyond. I was dirty and bearded and my clothes were in tatters. (Yes, no doubt it was me; that describes me perfectly.)

Then, the dream shifted to a panoramic view, as though in a film, and I was watching myself on the raft from a great distance as it entered the delta area, drifting on toward an endless sea. Only then did I notice that there was someone else on the raft, too, sitting behind me. The distance was so great I could not tell who the other person was and, abruptly, the dream ended.

Again, since there are few (if any) willing to suggest an interpretation for my dreams, I will offer my own for this one: I have joined with another individual, at least temporarily, on a path. This is represented by the two of us drifting along aboard a raft on a river.

The river is shallow and narrow, meaning either or both of us could leave the raft and wade ashore if we wished to do so. But, the land is empty desert, which offers little incentive to actually do so.

Still the land, empty as it is, is there, and might be the best choice given the vastness of the unknown sea upon which the raft, with the two of us drifting upon it, is about to enter.

So ends the dream and one way of looking at it.

But, with this dream and a rather meaningless sixteen months behind me, I have decided to fall out of the tree and to begin actual plans for an idea I have mentioned here recently but had not previously committed to doing: On December 31, either someone will arrive here -- or I will arrive somewhere else -- to observe the start of 2012.

Ian Fleming wrote: "You Only Live Twice." It was a novel. From my point of view, I am pushing maybe a dozen lives in real time -- and, I am only counting this voyage around the horn.