I feel more relaxed now that I have in a very long time. My pillows have been softer these past few nights than I've ever remember pillows being, and my Bed is so wide and so enveloping that I feel literally as if I close my eyes and lay on an entirely new world.
Here at my parents' house, where the light switch to the shower room is placed only just outside the shower curtain, I find that, having it in temping reach, I choose each night to turn out the lights during my shower. By doing this, I am put in perfect darkness, the kind found naturally only in the belly caves and at the bottom of the sea. I find myself doing this for one singular purpose. To imagine.
In a steamy cave where I cannot see even a hand in front of my face, I see things that are otherwise unviewable. Tonight I saw a rolling valley of tall, golden grass set between grey hills and steely, snow-capped crags. The valley stretched on either side as far as I could see, and the sun was framed on both horizons so that the grass would glow like true gold on every twilight. There was a slow, clear river I could see that was chill and inviting and ran along the valley and would meander sometimes into thin creeks an hour's trip down the sunset side of the prairie. The wind would always blow and make waves in the endless grass, and every direction promised adventure.
I saw more the longer I was in the dark. Though trees in the valley were scarce, I could see a large hardwood with widely fanning branches in whose trunk was set two windows and a door. The tree had been hollowed out, and this, I supposed, was where I stayed. I got the sense, that I was a tea-maker, and that I would travel in every direction to find new leaves for spicy recipes. I would make the different teas by hand and place them in teabags myself, wrapping each individually.
Outside, under the tree and by a window, a horse with old, grey reins grazed in the shade of the branches, where it also slept, and I expect she was mine. She had bags hanging from her saddle, filled with dried leaves that I had gathered from all over. I would ride her across the grassland of the valley since there were very few people who lived here and the distance between them was generally great. The closest person I knew of was a lady who lived where the river thinned to a creek and cut the valley in such a way that I would have to jump across or wade through it to visit her. She would wear a white frock and hum while she gathered flowers by the creek's edge. She also lived in a tree, though owned no horse, and I would ride to see her and bring her teas when I felt she needed company.
I remember dreaming of places outside the rolling valley and of the great sights and people I would meet there and the infinitude of places I might explore. I knew I would venture there someday, but the weather near my tree and the cool lap of the river had yet to wear off on me. Without a doubt, this valley of golden grass was my immutable home and the place I would always return to after a journey. Letters were written with quills and taken by birds, and my tea leaves were in innumerable glass jars lining shelves that trailed the inside of my tree.
Then I turned on the light. I was back in my bath room, and my eyes hurt a little. I had laughed while soaking in a slow clear river and felt the air push by me while I rode on horseback between illimitable possibilities. I had slept and climbed in a hardwood tree that overlooked heaven, and now, in one sobering instant, it was all less than a memory. I couldn't help but laugh at myself at how ridiculous the thing had been and how much I actually missed it. It was a true treasure, as I saw it. That valley was everything beautiful to me. For that reason alone, I believe, that Valley, to whatever degree invented, is still very much worth remembering.
I encourage you, if you can, to shower with the lights out. I've been asked on multiple occasions why I take such lengthy showers, lit and unlit, and to that question, perhaps, the best answer is that I simply think better in there.
Imagination is magic, I swear it.
