d r e a m

I recently had someone refer to my sketchbook as a 'book of dreams', after having left it face open on my desk after work. Whatcha got there in your book of dreams, they said; the page was rife with the swirling lines and happy face variations that I'd produced for a tattoo design request.

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Lately, I've been experiencing episodes of exhausted disconnectedness; I'll get off the streetcar after a day at the office and wander aimlessly, looking into shops and at passing people in a daze. Last week I meandered up a street I'd never spent much time on for an hour or so, halfheartedly determined to buy something: a snack, some dinner, a book, a trinket. After passing plenty of interesting locations, I doubled back, entered a juice bar and realized that I had neither cash nor plastic; I shuffled awkwardly outside once more, balanced my purse on my knee and rifled around for a while. Eventually, I migrated to a bench, continued to dig around in the depths of my bag (cluttered with nail polish, pens, mints, receipts, pins, screws...) and found a handful of change.

I continued back down the sidewalk, coins in the palm of my hand. After some debate, I bought two dollars worth of strawberries from a fruit market (which was swarming with bees who kept swooping erratically past my head and colliding with their own reflections in the store's mirrored wall — so much anxiety). The sun had set by then, the street was bustling and cool.

Life is arbitrary — where we go, what we do. It's strangely pleasurable to disassociate from the structure of habitual life, to wander and let go of routine.