Dreamscapes

17 Feb Dreamscapes

The park. The garden. The coordinates of this year’s winter lie within a handful of square miles. My take on winter beyond that relies on watching weather maps and imagining. Imagining familiar places bathed in white light, bitterly cold and more remote than ever. I fancy the northwest of Scotland any time of year but especially now. Glistening white mountain peaks, snow-ribbed trees, hoar-etched grass, frost-bitten loch edges, pure, clear air. Absolutely freezing. I exhale slowly and imagine my breath turn to steam, feel my eyes nip. It’s a happy thought.

I dream of the light looking the length of Loch Garry driving north. There’s a high point above the loch where you can look down to where it flows into a river – or maybe the river flows into it. Across the water are the hills of Knoydart where there are no roads. If you want to cross it you must do it on foot. That’s still a dream – another dream. I search for a photo in vain – I must have thought it was too beautiful and a photo would never do it justice. A few miles on is Loch Loyne and I find a photo. 

These dreams are daydreams and mostly about open spaces and freedom – what we city dwellers miss most. Not surprising, I suppose, that such daydreaming is more urgent this winter. I’m thankful for the parks – though thankful sounds too tame. The parks and the river are more precious than ever now. But they are often heaving with people similarly minded to escape their four walls for a while and feel the air on their faces. 

The dreams are a lifeline to a calm space where I can choose to have the place to myself. They are also an imagined future built on a memory, a moment of the past. 

Another dream world has me on the edge of a village in southern Spain looking out past tumbling bougainvillea towards the Mediterranean down a terraced hillside freckled with almonds to a flat plain dotted with oranges and olives. The oranges will be heavy with fruit this time of year; the olives are resting; the almonds are bursting with little sprigs of candy-floss blossom. I turn my head to look the other way and try to count the layers of the sierra as they fold back inland, the shadows between making me lose count. I shield my eyes against the sun. It’s 3 pm and it’s still warm but by 5 the sun will have dipped behind the hills and the chill will have me reaching for a sweater and some cosy socks.

Outside and out of the dream it’s grey. The window of my study is spattered with rain, such even droplets that it looks like a design. The cold snap that was our winter is probably over, and it was just a snap, a click of seasonal fingers. A pair of yellow crocuses braved the cold and survived though one is drooping now. Bulb shoots are popping up all over the garden. My neighbour’s camellia has been doing its thing in fierce magenta for the last couple of weeks. The squirrels are still racing around digging randomly, or so it seems. They forage anxiously as if every meal is their last. The silver birch is looking wistful. I feel I can almost see goose-bumps on its pale, naked trunk. 

Lockdown goes on. And on. It will be easier come the longer, warmer days, being able slip out into the back garden, leave the door open and let the outside in for a while. Meanwhile, the dreamscapes are my escapes. They help clear my mind.