(When you wake) you’re still in a dream.*
In this case, a dream of midsummer.
I realised the other day that this weekend will mark exactly 35 years since my final schooldays. The end of a period in my life that is long enough gone to feel almost like a dream,
At around 4pm on Friday 21 June 1991, I finished my last A-Level exam paper. This was a German written paper. Unfortunately for me, it was the very last A-Level examination to be held by my school that year. All of my schoolfriends had finished their A-Levels days or even weeks earlier.
I remember feeling envious of their now having the freedom to enjoy a time of sunshine and cider-supping, while I was chained to my studies for a few further excruciatingly slow days.
But I felt so touched when that last exam was done, and I emerged from the classroom to find my friends waiting for me with a fresh bottle of cider to celebrate my newfound freedom.
I woke up the next morning (Saturday 22 June 1991) feeling mildly hungover, but more than anything happy to have awoken from the bad dream of exam stress (I took exams perhaps too seriously – just as I continued and continue to take some things much too seriously). I remember lying in bed that morning listening to the Revolver LP by The Beatles (a beautiful and wildly creative dream of a record). As I listened to and lost myself in the music, whatever the future might hold seemed like a dream to me. A dream I was both excited and nervous to step into.
Today, looking back across those 35 years, I am delighted to know now that the 1991 me could never have dreamt of where life would take him (or me, if you will).
Two examples. Today is my ninth wedding anniversary. I met her when I was 27, a far-distant age to the me of 1991. Next month, my wife and I will celebrate 12 years of living in this particular part of East Sussex. Relocating ourselves here was one of the best things we have ever done. In a way, moving to this part of the world was a leap into the unknown. I had never even heard of the township in which we now dwell until a few months before we chose to make our lives here. I am so glad we made that leap. I am thankful each day that we chose to take the path not yet taken. To follow a dream of how life could be.
Parts of everyone’s life feel like a dream, perhaps when you are going through them, perhaps when you recall them. If you are fortunate, the good dreams will outnumber the bad. If you are very fortunate indeed, your life will continue to take you to places and to meet people you can’t even now dream of. Where might life take you next?
May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.
May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.
FOOTNOTES
* I borrow this phrase from a wonderful song by My Bloody Valentine, from their incredible 1988 album Isn’t Anything. Back in 1991, My Bloody Valentine were by far my favourite band. I first discovered the music of My Bloody Valentine via the writing of Melody Maker journalist Simon Reynolds, who has remained a lifelong favourite writer of mine. I remember the impact of his words on me back in 1991, the way that his writing encouraged me to be open (in music and in life) to wonders I had not yet (and could never have) dreamed of. I am immensely looking forward to reading Mr Reynolds’s new book, released this past week and entitled Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984–1994. Thank you for all your words over so many years, sir.
IMAGES
- Midsummer Eve bonfire on Skagen’s beach – P.S. Krøyer – Google Cultural Institute via Wikimedia Commons.
MJCarty 
