During the onset of a successful recovery from grief, I am prone to attempting to restructure my life so whatever caused the grief does not happen again. I sit for long hours and determine any myriad of causes that added to the potpourri of despair.

I look at myself and wonder what it is I can nip and tuck and chisel away to form a sculpture of supreme beauty. Redouble artistic efforts, that’s a possibility. Learn to cook better food. There’s always weight to lose and muscles to reform, knowledge to gather for its own sake, practical skills to cultivate in the name of practicality, money to make which allows for everything else . . . the point is, I suppose, if I want to inspire lifelong loyalty in someone, I need to build myself to have the greatest utility possible and never, ever, ever falter in my endeavors. I am not good enough. I’m scarcely better than raw ore found on the ground somewhere. I have always been cold, tired, and unemotional otherwise. This is the best I can do to make up for it.

I have posted a few times about dreams. I wonder, have you ever heard the story behind the Devil’s Trill sonata? Giuseppe Tartini reported to a Frenchman:

One night, in the year 1713 I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and I awoke. I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least, the impression of my dream. In vain! The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the “Devil’s Trill”, but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me.

I have had some dreams where the experiences were so great that real life can scarcely if ever match it. Perhaps my expectations of myself and others fall alongside those unrealistic . . . maybe unattainable . . . dreams.