10/09/2024
This is going out everywhere. Welcome to the story I think I was always meant to write.
I am someone who has always seen, through dreams, a visual language that I learned to rely on. I have dreamed of houses and libraries since early childhood. I came to understand that houses were representations of how we build ourselves during our lives. Who we are. How we grow.
My dream houses have changed as I have grown. I know when a stage of my life is over because I move into a new house in my dreams. I will sometimes visit the older ones, for whatever reason, after I move on. But none of them stay exactly the same. They are always altering themselves, even within the dream I am having. They just retain enough identity for me to know: this is me at that age. This is me, now.
At this time, I live in hotels. Because I am in transition. I am heading towards the universal ocean. I am an elder.
I have occasionally dreamed of great libraries which were falling apart. Untended, or illusions. I often wondered why no one ever cared for the many rows of books I saw. Or kept the floors intact. Until the night the library fell completely apart, and left me with one single book I could hold in my hand. A large book. But light as a feather.
I haven’t dreamed of libraries, that I recall, since that time.
However: One thing remains constant in all my dreams. When I enter a dream I know I am entering a single book. Because I see pages turn and change in the dark. I see illustrations of offered stories. Sometimes I see glimpses of words, though the pages turn quickly. Then apparently I make a choice and the action begins in earnest. But what does the dream really bring?
That idea is used in this fiction. This is the Universal Lexicon. The universe as a single, ever altered, conscious, book. A book expressed and read in reality, and dreamery.
But why?
That’s what this episodic fiction is about. It uses images and language, through its story, as symbols and metaphors for a universal reality we can never fully know.
I have formed this tale through experiences I have had, the wisdom brought to me by others, and often by the random choice of images that are available to me as the writing is done. For example: The photograph used to head the coming Episode 2 of the story, Alice’s Looking Book, formed the chapter. I have a basic plot completed. I know each step of the story arc. But the details come from finding the right image to start each part of the tale. The image inspires how the dialogue will form.
And here’s the fun part. I always find an amazing perfect image within a few seconds of my search.
The universe is cooperating.
So I don’t think of AlterLexicon as MY book. I think of myself as a transcriber, and editor. But after all the writing I have done in my life, this one work is being edited with a light and happy hand.
Little bits of trivia:
Why are The Tall Books of the bookshop blue?
For two reasons: one of the books I remember from my childhood was copy of lexicographer Noah Webster’s first famous book, known as The American (later Elementary) Spelling Book, aka “The Blue-Backed Speller.” My mother’s copy from her school days, during World War I, was still in her possession. And that is how I learned to spell, too.
The other reason? I love the long running British television series Doctor Who. So much. If I ever find an old worn out blue book of the right proportions and look, I will make an altered book that is a TARDIS. A time machine that is bigger on the inside than the outside.
Because that is what a book is. Always.
We should never give up reading books. Even if they are in an internet form, you can still turn the pages. It is very important to turn the page. And keep reading as long as you can.
Sana Sparks September 10, 2024
