Read Online The Abundance of the Infinite by Christopher Canniff - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Canniff
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experienced. Sunlight beams through the windows and I am tired, thinking that, instead of contemplating what I endured the night before, desperately attempting to forget my dread as my heart pounded rhythmically to the pulse of the waves lapping onto the beach, I must focus on other thoughts.
I contemplate how to make âlegitimateâ art.⦠First, choose a worthy subject: Karen ⦠not falling, or sweating, but standing upright, unaffected by any form of physical exertion ... choose an incomprehensible message: that her dreams are like chilled wine, dry or sweet, white or red, rich in tannins, intense and spicy, complex in flavour ⦠her dreams do not fill her with terror without the accompanying nightmares ... try to forget ⦠choose a background: her departure ⦠the time has come to make âlegitimateâ art.
I sketch her as she sleeps for the first time, at her request made the previous evening, in my apartment, on my couch. It is mid-morning. From her spasmodic movements I am aware that she is dreaming some awful dream, which she may not remember upon awakeningâunless, of course she awakens quickly and has time to recall the events before her conscious mind suppresses and overpowers her unconscious thoughts ⦠she shifts one way, then another ⦠then suddenly, she opens her eyes. She tells me she remembers a bus ⦠there were cliffs, too ⦠the university above, the sky below ⦠the bus fell over the cliffâs edge, and into the red sky. She was falling, endlessly falling.â¦
I work to somehow capture the essence of fright in her face.
This is a way to remember, I say as she watches me. I am sketching a crude picture of her dream images now. This is a dream diary of sorts, I explain. A mnemonic trigger to recollect some of the events of the dream.
She dismisses her dream. It was ridiculous, she says. What colour was the bus? I ask her as I begin to paint. Red, she says, the same as the students and the sky . Were you on it? I donât know. I think so. What about the cliff, what shape was it? More rounded than any cliff should be. The university? The same as it is in normal life. You donât see the meaning, then? No. The one constant is your work, the students and the bus the same colour as the sky, the students all merging together into one memory, the rounded cliffs early Freud would say are your breasts and I would say it is your inability to attach yourself to any one person or place. Falling in dreams has to do with a lack of control. The myth that you will die in your sleep if you hit the bottom is just that, a myth. Iâve had many patients who have hit the bottom and still, they have woken up. Still, I hope I never hit the bottom.
As I paint, I recall how I have recently dreamed of falling. Sometimes Annabelle is there falling along with me, her tiny body wrapped in the same cloth as my fatherâs shroud. We have never met earth. The land below is always black, the same as the darkness that surrounds us, but somehow I know it is there. Despite my knowledge that my death would not come as I hit it, the subliminal realization that it was there always prompted me into consciousness.
Are you psychoanalyzing me? Karen asks.
Perhaps, I say, adding after a moment: well, actually, yes.
A while later, with a look of patent disgust on her face as her eyes move from what she says to be one disturbing image to another, from the picture of her dream to other pencil sketches and paintings scattered about, she suddenly and resolutely declares: You are no artist. No artist at all.
15
There are times when I am convinced that I see someone from Canada who I know, walking on the streets of Manta, and I realize afterward that all those around me must be strangers. The notion of their assumed identity defies my sense of logic. Still, I have seen past patients and family members in the crowds, and friends from my childhood walking on the streets alone
I contemplate how to make âlegitimateâ art.⦠First, choose a worthy subject: Karen ⦠not falling, or sweating, but standing upright, unaffected by any form of physical exertion ... choose an incomprehensible message: that her dreams are like chilled wine, dry or sweet, white or red, rich in tannins, intense and spicy, complex in flavour ⦠her dreams do not fill her with terror without the accompanying nightmares ... try to forget ⦠choose a background: her departure ⦠the time has come to make âlegitimateâ art.
I sketch her as she sleeps for the first time, at her request made the previous evening, in my apartment, on my couch. It is mid-morning. From her spasmodic movements I am aware that she is dreaming some awful dream, which she may not remember upon awakeningâunless, of course she awakens quickly and has time to recall the events before her conscious mind suppresses and overpowers her unconscious thoughts ⦠she shifts one way, then another ⦠then suddenly, she opens her eyes. She tells me she remembers a bus ⦠there were cliffs, too ⦠the university above, the sky below ⦠the bus fell over the cliffâs edge, and into the red sky. She was falling, endlessly falling.â¦
I work to somehow capture the essence of fright in her face.
This is a way to remember, I say as she watches me. I am sketching a crude picture of her dream images now. This is a dream diary of sorts, I explain. A mnemonic trigger to recollect some of the events of the dream.
She dismisses her dream. It was ridiculous, she says. What colour was the bus? I ask her as I begin to paint. Red, she says, the same as the students and the sky . Were you on it? I donât know. I think so. What about the cliff, what shape was it? More rounded than any cliff should be. The university? The same as it is in normal life. You donât see the meaning, then? No. The one constant is your work, the students and the bus the same colour as the sky, the students all merging together into one memory, the rounded cliffs early Freud would say are your breasts and I would say it is your inability to attach yourself to any one person or place. Falling in dreams has to do with a lack of control. The myth that you will die in your sleep if you hit the bottom is just that, a myth. Iâve had many patients who have hit the bottom and still, they have woken up. Still, I hope I never hit the bottom.
As I paint, I recall how I have recently dreamed of falling. Sometimes Annabelle is there falling along with me, her tiny body wrapped in the same cloth as my fatherâs shroud. We have never met earth. The land below is always black, the same as the darkness that surrounds us, but somehow I know it is there. Despite my knowledge that my death would not come as I hit it, the subliminal realization that it was there always prompted me into consciousness.
Are you psychoanalyzing me? Karen asks.
Perhaps, I say, adding after a moment: well, actually, yes.
A while later, with a look of patent disgust on her face as her eyes move from what she says to be one disturbing image to another, from the picture of her dream to other pencil sketches and paintings scattered about, she suddenly and resolutely declares: You are no artist. No artist at all.
15
There are times when I am convinced that I see someone from Canada who I know, walking on the streets of Manta, and I realize afterward that all those around me must be strangers. The notion of their assumed identity defies my sense of logic. Still, I have seen past patients and family members in the crowds, and friends from my childhood walking on the streets alone
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