Tuesday Thoughts at Dawn

Do you ever lie in bed, between sleep and wakefulness, and have these random thoughts running through your head? Nothing in particular and everything at once. Then you wake and can’t quite grasp any of it. But you know if you could write down those thoughts, you would have the most-fascinating invention, award-winning recipe, or best-selling novel of all time! 

My thoughts often rally around editing of a current WIP or planning upcoming activities. Often I am composing a reply to a question or the response to a letter. Yesterday, I received a postcard in the mail from a friend in Oregon. The card displays photographs of two Sultans on the front; is postmarked PORTLAND OR; and carries postage of the ALOHA Hawaiian shirt stamp. The postcard serves well as a metaphor for my eclectic morning thoughts: a potpourri of ideas, thoughts, and sights. 

Making use of these morning thoughts is a bit tricky because of their elusiveness. On sitting up, or opening my eyes, the bulk of a plan or the nucleus of an idea vanishes, never to return. Even now, having risen from bed to write this in hopes of capturing a recent sleep-wake thought, I draw a blank. I am left wondering if the thought was as utterly amazing as it appeared in my sleep state or if, like an alcohol-induced statement, was utter hogwash filtered through . . . well, through no filter at all. 

At dawn, the splendor of an idea is considered and dissected, warts and all. A beautiful opening line of a new novel suddenly takes on the amateurish (though brilliant) Snoopy-ness of “It was a dark and stormy night.” At that point the editing begins and any uniqueness is removed because it does not conform to the edicts of protocol. Spontaneity vanishes, along with the enticing invention, the mouthwatering meal, or the innovative novel. 

It isn’t always best to listen to your inner Archie Bunker and “stifle” your ideas. Do not edit the life out of your creations. Allow your ideas to flow in the brilliance of morning sunlight. Preserve the uniqueness you bring to a thought that is common around the world but, until now, has not received your personal and inimitable touch. 

Do you ever lie in bed, between sleep and wakefulness, with random thoughts running through your head?