I’ve often had dreams in which I felt sure that I was awake. How can I be sure that I’m not dreaming?

Say I have a dream that I am a butterfly. What if I actually am a butterfly, dreaming that I’m a human being?

How can I be sure that I’m not some kind of brain in a vat, hooked up to an incredibly powerful machine which simulates my sensory experience of the material world?

How can I be sure that an evil demon hasn’t bewitched me, tricked me, deceived me into experiencing the world in the ways that I do?

How do I know I’m not a character in a story?

How do I know that you’re real?

How do I know if I’m real?

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This was the sort of puzzle that kept the lads up in the university busy, and sometimes even gainfully employed. 🧡

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Meanwhile, the nurses made their rounds and tended to the sick and the dying.

The mother balanced babies on her hip, patched jeans when they’d gotten ripped, washed dishes with brittle soap, milked the goats, kneaded rosemary into the bread dough and let it rise under a towel in the warmth of a patch of sun.

The witches went to the woods to find a quiet moment alone.

The farmer watched the flooding and the insects in the fields. The sailor adjusted course to the prevailing wind. The plumber worked expensive magic over the pipes. The children played hop-scotch past the cigarette butts on the sidewalk, drawing faint and wobbley lines of yellow chalk.

Recall the taste of raspberries, exploding in your mouth. The breeze on your skin. A cat’s rough kisses. Raindrops, tangled in eye lashes.

Bodies on the streets of the city on the other side of the world.

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Once in a while, dear one, get your nose out of that book and go outside.