Drawing by N. Wait 1980s
To free myself from the past, I gave myself to the past.
When I gave myself to the past, I found a different pathway to the present.
A new passage from there to here. After I went back there, to get back here. Are you hearing me there? In giving myself to the past, I discovered a never-ending present.
No matter the present is all we’ve ever had, we are ruled by what has come before. I could rise each morning knowing it was a new day, but it was always a continuation of what had come before.
Except for three mornings. Three mornings that were completely new and different. Only three, in a lifetime of mornings. Of seemingly new days, only three were really new. The others might have been fresh, but they were still continuations of the day before. These three were different. There really can come a day, a moment, a time, when something different occurs.
Drawing by N. Wait (1980s)
The first morning that was different came after a dream when I was twenty-six. A dream of death and rebirth. A dream when a door opened under water, a symbol of the subconscious. A dream of awakening to the inner world.
The dream was about being shot, and falling to the bottom of the sea. Then having a door open under water. It was the door to my inner world. In one night, with one dream, everything changed. Suddenly I realized there were things inside me. Riches. All I had to do was express them. Bring them out. Write or paint this inner knowledge, these inner riches I hadn’t known existed. It was like a new dimension had sprung up overnight.
It was the world through the door that had opened in a dream. This was the new dimension. When I looked through the door, all I saw was more water, more sea. But that was it. That was the message: see more. There was more to see. There was another world inside of me.
The second different morning came four years later. It came when I was living the change, 
being the change. It came after I had changed. And now I had to change again. Again, after a dream. Go deeper. More deeply into the dark. The unseen.
And while I was there, the third morning came. The third morning was the most difficult of all. It did not stem from a dream. Or not one that I remembered. The fact is, I awoke in a new dream. I awoke living a new dream. It happened twenty-five years ago. The morning when I awoke from my sleep happened twenty-five years ago. Since then, I’ve had a lot of cat naps. Since then, I’ve written a memoir that ended with the first morning. And that afternoon…
It began before my birth, and ended with my rebirth. Plus a few more days…
Now I’m writing about the days and nights that led up to the second new morning. These are stories I need to tell. For all the dark nights and dark days we live through, we need stories about waking into the light.
I drew myself into the light. That’s the story I need to tell now. Even though it’s really about going into the dark. Because we have to start somewhere. I began in the dark.
