Our Particular Artistic Crisis of the Moment

I woke up at five o’clock this morning with an incredibly vivid dream fresh in my head. I haven’t had such a vivid dream in years. (Come to think of it, I haven’t even remembered any of my dreams for months.) It was a long and generally realistic dream, with some funny details, like Xy & I discovering a new wing to our house. But it was the final detail that really got me. I was in a pub or at a party; I was holding forth on the current state of ROX to a guy, who was a ROX fan, and his girlfriend, who seemed a bit skeptical of the whole enterprise.

“Our particular artistic crisis of the moment is a common one,” I said. “Basically, we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing.”

“I hope you don’t mind me pointing out — that’s exactly what you said last time I talked to you,” the girlfriend said.

I didn’t remember ever talking to her before. “Well, at least I’m consistent.”

“The last time I talked to you was ten years ago.”

I just stared at her, dumbstruck. I still didn’t remember her, but ten years ago ROX was at its peak, or so it seems to me now. I often look back to our activity ten years ago with a certain nostalgic longing. I’d come to think that we knew what we were doing then, and have lost our way since. Yet her words reminded me of how it really was. Suddenly I felt transported ten years into the past. I remembered the feeling of being strapped to the engine of a locomotive hurtling into the darkness.

“Thank you,” I said at last. “Thank you for reminding me that, even back then, we were thoroughly and utterly confused.”

And I woke up feeling sad and amazed and inspired and confused.