D is for Dreams

         (If you’re waiting for April to officially begin the April A to Z Blog Challenge, don’t mind me!  I’m just getting a head start.  You can

read my Theme Reveal Post here, and when April comes I’ll direct you to the correct letter every day.)

        My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’ll be sharing lots of excerpts, and I’ll also be sharing some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  There will be lots of other bloggers working their way through the alphabet this year, too, and you can find out what themes they’ve got planned at the Theme Reveal List.

        “Dreams” is another of the poems in the book.  But rather than share the whole thing, today I’m sharing the illustration that goes with it.  This one isn’t a block print.  In fact, it’s a doodle.  The original doodle was made nearly 30 years ago, during a faculty meeting.  I found it so satisfying that I kept it in my notebook all these years.  It seemed like an appropriate place to begin when illustrating a dream world, because what are dreams, after all, but the doodlings of the subconscious mind?  To complete the illustration for my book, I added the doe, blue butterflies, fish, and quail, which are characters in the poem.  The quail and butterflies are adapted from independent block prints, which I scanned and added to the image digitally, and I drew in the doe and fish.

        In case you’re hoping for a Word of the Month on this last post of March, how about doodle?  The definition “draw aimlessly” appeared in 1935, and seems to have drawn from a variety of influences.  Doodle could be a verb meaning “to fritter time,” possibly associated with dawdle, and a doodle could also be a person: in the mid 17th century “a simpleton,” and in the mid 18th century “an idler.”  (That definition can be seen in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”)  Doodling may be a way to fritter away time idly, but humans have done it for millenia, and nowadays studies suggest that it’s an excellent way to increase memory, alleviate stress, and regulate the brain.  And of course, now a doodle can also be a poodle crossbreed - which may also be good for alleviating stress!

        D is also for Delight, which is what I hope this book will bring you.  The ability to take delight in things is a muscle that sometimes atrophies as people grow up and become too “cool” or too “busy” to exercise it.  If you want to know what delights me, well, of course a lot of it is in this blog.  But you could also check out my Instagram, in which I post one picture each day of something that delights me, in the hope that it might delight others, too.

        Marketing Moral: Not ready to buy my book?  How about going to your local library and putting in a request for them to buy it for their collection.  You’ll get to read it for free (eventually… It can take a long time!) and better yet, you’ll be helping to make it available for others, as well.

        Proper Moral: Hang onto your dreams.  Even when the world doesn’t live up to our high ideals, it’s still important to have dreams to point us in the direction we want to go.

        Do you like to doodle?  Or do you have something else to keep your hands occupied or your mind regulated during long meetings?  Have you ever doodled something that surprised and delighted you?

[Picture: Dreams, illustration by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]