Synkroniciti is happy to welcome back Houston artist, poet, and writer Brooke Summers-Perry with “Returning,” a prose dream narrative that pits fond memories of home against existential dread. Returning to a happy place, a picnic table near the family pond constructed when she was in middle school, the dreamer is confronted by a storm.
“Clear cobalt expands above a band of charred indigo clouds that rest heavily on the green glow of a disturbed atmosphere. Cool air and hot air dance in black swirls that suddenly drop from the bottom of the cloud line. Like strands of hair being whipped into a braid, the earth pulls them to the ground. They zip across the pasture. Tall metal sheets that once kept deer away from the vegetable garden now spiral upward, thickening the braid.”
The dreamer flies through walls to see her family completely unaware of the storm outside, a storm related to the stress they cause within. At some point in our lives, we begin to realize that the distance from our youth is widening–we realize that the world around us doesn’t look like it did when we were children. Our children need our help, as do our parents. There is a natural feeling of angst that rises up when we feel stretched between them.
As the dreamer’s subconscious taps into these dark feelings, there is a shift.
“I feel gravity lose its grip. Still in motion, my legs slow their gait; their effort is lost to weightlessness. As each muscle gives way to the ease of flight, my heart follows.”
The subconscious grants the dreamer the freedom to fly. We wonder if this storm, these winds, are the not necessarily bad circumstance, but currents within the dreamer herself, which she can access and ride. Sometimes dreams give us an opportunity to release fear and find new strength by loosening the parameters we have accepted on our lives. Sometimes the thing we fear the most is our own power.
Brooke’s writing is a sensory feast with colorful, textured, and active imagery. We find ourselves breathless, caught up in the dream. There is so much to unpack here and she gives us subtle clues that nudge us to look for synchronicity.
Read “Returning” in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Brooke Summers-Perry is a painter, poet, teacher and coach. She grew up in the woods and returns to her wild, wide-eyed, peace-loving roots by facilitating community learning circles, creating blackout poetry, and teaching Nonviolent Communication™ as a spiritual practice.