be cacophonous

i had this dream the other night that i was walking down the street by my house past the bakery with the grouchy cupcake makers and the library with the forgetful but cute librarian and the court house that is actually just an apartment building and the paper shop with the lovely owner, and i came to the coffee shop where all the people with dreadlocks hang out.

and usually i walk past, and sometimes i go inside and get a drink, but today i stopped in front because i noticed that people had been writing all sorts of things in chalk on the outside of the building.

so i picked up a piece of purple sidewalk chalk from a bucket sitting there and i weighed it in my hands, turning it over and over. i pondered.

suddenly there was a crowd of people, anxiously waiting to see what i would write. they were silent, expectant. i had been thinking i might just write, “suzy was here!” but with an audience, i realized i couldn’t do that. under so much pressure, i stood there for an hour. two hours. i sweated, coughed, smiled nervously. three hours.

finally, i reached up and scrawled out, in 12-inch high lettering, “BE CACOPHONOUS.”

and then i went on my way.

and then i woke up, so i never got to know if the crowd deemed my word offering worthy or not. nuts.

in case you don’t know, “cacophonous” means jarring in sound, or grating. kind of an unpleasant noise. dissonance.

so.

that is the message from my subconscious today.

be noisy. and not in a good way.