Yes, things have been going well with “Daisy.” Like, really, really well. We’re still in the getting-to-know-you phase of things, but I really like who I’m getting to know. She’s still quiet a lot of the time, and doesn’t smile easily, but she’s got this razor-sharp wit that comes out of nowhere and this deep, deep curiosity that lights up her eyes whenever she gets a whiff of something she doesn’t know about. This doesn’t feel like something that’s light or casual. Which would scare me except … I’m just excited. Like I’ve woken up to a massive snowfall and my surroundings are no longer familiar but all the more interesting because of that.

Anyway, that’s enough poetical writing about weather and girls for one day. Maybe if y’all are nice about this post, I’ll share a teeny-tiny portion of poetry. But for now, I’m going to go curl up with my girlfriend and take a nap.

NOVEMBER 1ST, 2016

This afternoon I went rollerblading.

I’m not even sure what I had been dreaming about before I realized I was dreaming. The act of recalling a lucid dream is a bit like trying to perfectly pinpoint your earliest memory. I don’t know when I arrived at consciousness in my life, couldn’t mark the year, the moment when I started forming the long-term memories that have built upon one another to make me the person I am. We don’t remember the moment of our birth, just like we don’t remember the instant we slip from waking into sleep.

I woke up spinning inside my dream. Spinning without my muscles tensing, spinning without getting nauseous. Spinning with uncomplicated joy. Then I realized I was dreaming. I spun faster, sticking out my arms, the speed just fast enough to feel exhilarating, to make the wind whip through my hair, but not fast enough to make my neck ache.

And then, suddenly, there was that second waking. That sharp, cool wind that blows to tell me I’m walking somewhere else. That I’m in someone else’s head. I opened my eyes, stopped spinning, to see Emily, beautiful, free, lovely Emily, spinning and spinning. I grabbed her hand and we spun together.

That was when I realized—we were flying. Finally, finally flying. Not just on solid ground among the clouds, not hurtling through a dark and terrifying nightmare, not floating bodiless through the woods, but flying of my own volition, in my own control. I gripped Emily’s hand tighter and stopped us spinning, propelled us higher and higher. We floated up into the air, breathless with joy, and Emily’s beauty was almost too bright to look at.