A Dream in Spiral Time—Advice from Conversation with a Future Self
Come in, come in! Really, do come in. Make yourself comfortable.
Don’t mind the mess. It’s always like this. I’d offer you tea, but we just ran out. We’re isolated out here in this cabin, but the silence helps us write. It’s deeply important to our process.
Yes, our process.
Ah, I see you’ve already got questions. It’s my job to answer some of them. Sit, sit!
We’ll be fifty-two next week. I’ve got a check-up in another month, but our health is under control. Things happen, of course, but we don’t die as soon as you think. Yes, even now you’re still thinking about death. It doesn’t stop, just quiets down.
You are indeed a writer now. Yes, it did work out. Yes, you did many other things. No, it wasn’t easy. It still isn’t easy, but how un-easy it is, I can’t say. That’s something you’ll have to learn all on your own.
But—and this is a significant but—there is something I can tell you. This is the first lesson. Listen closely: you don’t need to explain yourself. What, you want me to explain? All right then.
For you—you and your Māoridom—you don’t have to explain yourself. Write as if your understanding of the world is just as true as everyone else’s, because it is. Write with the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, you are known, and more so, understood. You have a unique perspective. People want to know about it.
Write not like you’re running out of time, but like you’re walking its length. Write in the same way the river walks the land, reaching through time and space, changing it as it is changed. What you think now will turn into what you thought then. Record the ebb and flow, and give it to yourself as a gift.
Write for the audience of us—of you and me. You’re writing out to me from back there in your boring little life, which now I cherish in my memory. Every word you pen, I’ll read. And when you’re me, you’ll have this talk all over again, but you’ll be changed.
Listen to your words as much as you do the world. Listen to my voice that speaks through your hand. You’ll make a living, and you’ll actually be living. Which is more of a miracle than a lot of people ever realise. So look forward to that, if nothing else.
That brings this meeting to a close. Go back out there and write. Just write. You don’t have to bear your heart to be known. You just have to write it out. I’ll write back to you from here. It will reach you in due time.
Haere rā. I love you.
