The Lorax, Guinea Pigs and Charles Lindbergh
It's five o'clock in the morning. I see Stonehenge, the massive horizontal stones looking deceptively precarious atop their supports. The circles of rocks are surrounded by a lush, green, rolling landscape. The monument is bathed in late afternoon light as are the inhabitants atop it. Calmly perched on one of the horizontal monoliths is a cartoon walrus who resembles the Lorax. He's pink, anyway. Keeping him company are several, normal-colored guinea pigs - the kind who look like their hair is one big cowlick. They are brown and white and frolicking around on top of the stones, making those cute squeaky noises. There is also the name, Charles Lindell. Not printed anywhere, and certainly not a person in the flesh, but just the idea of a name. In the air, maybe. An aura?
Stonehenge, pink Lorax walrus, cheerful guinea pigs and the idea of a name? It's not an acid trip; it is what is going on in my brain as I lie in bed between waking and sleeping, in a perfectly ordinary bedroom, no drugs involved.
I am crazy. Or I am some sort of oracle.
I watched a documentary on Stonehenge right before going to bed last night. I also saw a cartoon walrus who made me giggle in a Facebook meme yesterday. An old friend sent me a message recently and mentioned his kids had lots of pets, which prompted me to wonder if they were the regular dog-and-cat variety or something more exotic like birds, lizards or guinea pigs.
The documentary mentioned that the horizontal cross stone on the tops of the supports are called lintels. I remembered that's also what you call the crosspiece over a doorway, and noted that lintel is a general-crosspiece word, not one specific to stone monuments. It was interesting (to my writer brain, anyway.) Lintel sounds like the last name, Lindell. Which reminded me of Charles Lindbergh, who did something cool with planes or aviation or something, so the name "Charles" got attached to Lindell.
The Stonehenge documentary got me to thinking about how we, as people, tend to have a less intimate relationship with nature and the celestial cycles for which Stonehenge seems to have been created. Thus, the Lorax element. I didn't realize I was doing any of this. I just saw the trippy Stonehenge panorama, complete with cavorting beasties. But when I traced each element, I realized its origin.
So that is what my brain sometimes does when it is supposed to be sleeping. It's pretty entertaining. It makes me wish I could draw better, too. I'm not crazy or clairvoyant, just a little weird maybe. And super adept at free association. What does your brain do in the twilight world between wakefulness and sleep?