Write Thru Crisis – Precious Life. I had a dream last night. It was deep winter, though our real season now is the beginning of summer. My son and I were in Denver, at a layover of a flight from the east coast, where we now live, to Washington State, where we used to live.
The dream details were vivid, but the time wasn’t the present. My son was young, maybe ten years old, though he is in his fifties now. I wasn’t any particular age. I was simply his mother, responsible for the safety of his precious life, and my own, and our safety was in danger.
A snowstorm raged outside, and the forecast was possibly dire. For some reason, only comprehensible in a dream, we were scheduled to travel in a relatively small plane. There was an important reason for our trip, and my son was eager to reach our destination. Everyone, including the pilot, assured me we would probably be safe to fly.
I don’t know what I believe about dreams. I don’t usually remember them after I awake. I’ve had others, vivid like this one, but I haven’t written them down afterward. I definitely have not written them down and shared them on the internet, or anywhere else.
The difference now is that we’re at a choice-making time in our personal waking lives. My husband and I must decide if we’ll reopen our business. as New York City reopens amidst the Covid-19 crisis, after nearly four months of public work suspension.
What makes this a dramatic story is the high stakes that are involved. We are both well beyond the sixty-five-plus vulnerable age for Coronavirus, and I have an underlying health condition. I won’t go into specific detail, but the physical circumstances of the company we run together are risky. My husband would face this risk in person and possibly bring it home to me.
I awoke from my intense dream to a lovely morning. The sun shone bright outside. The kitchen was flooded with light and warmth, and birds chirped beyond the window. There could hardly be a more peaceful setting. Yet, conflict persisted within our personal situation.
In a truly dramatic story, opposing high-stakes forces are at work. In our story, we hadn’t planned to retire this early. It would be to our financial advantage not to, and financial advantage is crucial to us, like it is to almost everyone we know. Back in my dream, the snowstorm continued, and threatened lives that were precious to me. In real-life, the pandemic did the same.
Have you ever been in your own high-stake situation? Has your safety, and/or that of people you love been at risk? Was a critical choice required? Did a prophetic message appear, maybe a dream? Was your flashing red light simply instinctual, or in some other warning form?
I won’t keep you in suspense. In my dream, I decided we wouldn’t travel further. My son grumbled, but the kind pilot invited us to stay in her pleasant home so all was well. Similarly, my husband and I have decided to close our business and continue the precautions that have protected us so far.
Your dramatic life stories also deserve to be told. If you’ve answered yes to any of the questions I asked about your own experiences, and I suspect you have, I hope you will write them down. Maybe also consider passing them on to me, to be shared as I’ve shared my own. Either way, I hope you will Write Thru Crisis about you own Precious Life.
Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.
Alice has spent most of her professional life in publishing, as book editor, literary agent, workshop leader, and author. She’s published 16 novels, 3 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript That Sells (revised version coming soon). Her current work in progress includes Hero in the Mirror: How to Write Your Best Story of You.
Read the story of another dramatic period of Alice’s precious life in her memoir Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness. Available HERE.
Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.
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Most of us make plans about how long to keep working, but then things happen. Usually not of this worldwide magnitude, granted. More typically it’s a personal health disaster that forces immediate retirement. Then again, think of all the people who intended to retire in 2009 and as the recession hit decided maybe they’d better keep going to the job after all. The door swings both ways.
Keeping safe is the name of the game for our age group right now, so you two keep safe. You’ll have other opportunities.
Dear Irene. Yes. Keeping safe is what we all must do. At our age, the risk is more palpable, more obvious. Our common sense tells us to pay attention to that risk and the warning it implies. Aging carries with it many risks, many challenges. Adjusting to new identities, such as a change of our working-self efinition, is only one of those challenges. The point being, that we become alert to the need to pay attention and take care. It seems that these conclusions are sometimes more difficult to arrive at for generations younger than our own. I pray that they do not suffer, nor cause others to suffer, because of that potentially disastrous miopia. Meanwhile, do keep yourself safe also, and continue to be as wise as you have always been. I have no doubt at all that the latter will occur. Love and Blessings. Alice
I’m glad you went with your instincts. They are seldom wrong.