“Last night I had this dream:

“It was evening in a room of my imagination. I discovered that with a bird-like stroke of arms, I could rise into the air and float above the floor. I called in passersby for a demonstration and found, to my mortification, that I couldn’t repeat the trick. I flapped about ineffectually for a time, feeling absurd, until the moment of giving up. It was then I beheld my feet, not planted on, but dangling inches above the floor. I dropped my arms with relief and floated to the ceiling, as gracefully as a helium balloon.

“I rose and descended many times more, embracing each of my audience in turn and lifting them up with me. It was as though we stood on an invisible pedestal that bore us up and down. When all had had a turn, I flew to the top of the wall to a row of small horizontal windows. I pressed through one of these and was momentarily out in a luminous night. There was another wall, another set of windows. Then at last I was free.

“A sumptuous landscape, more beautiful than life, rolled out before me. There were mountains just beyond touch whose shadows were every shade of violet. As I flew forth, there loomed up a haze of black winter branches that reached hundreds of feet into the air. They were hung with myriad icicles that sparkled in the starlight. I gasped with wonder at this celestial chandelier, and, as though one icicle had broken free and lodged magically in my heart, I felt pierced with joy, like the child I was beyond memory who first saw the rainbow iridescence of snow in the glow of an old street lamp. I began to sing as I flew. I saw a lighted arena and prancing horses that were animated drawings—not real. And I heard music that seemed to come from inside me as I dipped and turned on the wing.”