Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Timberline Review: Dreams
    The Timberline Review: Dreams
    The Timberline Review: Dreams
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    The Timberline Review: Dreams

    By Willamette Writers

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Timberline Review is an all-volunteer literary journal published by Willamette Writers. Our focus is on showcasing emerging talent. This issue includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and photography from Karla Bernstein, Eleanor Berry, Kendall S. Cable, Kathleen Caprario-Ulrich, Triston Dabney , Natalie Dale, MD, Nancy Deschu, Charlott

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWillamette Writers
    Release dateAug 4, 2023
    ISBN9798986422220
    The Timberline Review: Dreams
    Author

    Willamette Writers

    Willamette Writers is the largest writers organization in the Pacific Northwest. Writers of all genres and at all stages of their careers come to our meetings, annual conference, and workshops to connect with their community, develop their craft, and advance their career.

    Related to The Timberline Review

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Timberline Review

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Timberline Review - Willamette Writers

      Dreams

      Letter from the Editor

      Dreams become our escape and our lifeline during dark and demanding times. As writers, we imagine, we create, and we explore as a way of moving forward in the midst of tragedy, or of capturing a powerful moment in time.

      We hold grief in our hands and write in the face of loss. We dream our way into the future once we learn how quickly things can change.

      At Willamette Writers, we chose the theme of Dream in the middle of 2022, hoping for an end to the dark years of the pandemic and wanting to read beyond the ordinary. We wanted to imagine other futures and hold real experiences in our hands. In the same moment, dreams can bring together the light and the dark, the real and the imagined.

      With such diverse experiences, it is no surprise that the submissions for this issue also varied wildly. The collection reflects an array of human experiences and broad interpretations of Dream. Vivid memories, deep fears, compelling images, and future aspirations are all included within.

      Our brains process information in waves throughout our sleep cycles, and—ideally—we wake rested and ready to take on the day. The stories, poems and essays in Dream are ordered to suggest an arc of sleep over a night, or perhaps the arc of a lifetime of dreams. The artwork that precedes each phase sets the intention: drifting off; moving into deep learning and with eruptions of vivid, sometimes nightmarish scenes; then waking, ready to be present and reach forward.

      As the literary journal of Willamette Writers—a non-profit writing organization dedicated to supporting writers—we strive to promote creativity and diversity, showcasing excellent work from extraordinary voices. One of the reasons we read is to explore new worlds and experiences. Writing allows us to dream up bigger stories and imagine brighter futures. With that in mind, we hope you find this collection to be unique, thought-provoking, and ultimately uplifting.

      Thank you for supporting this publication.

      Susan Stecker Jones, Editor-in-Chief, July 2023

      I Remember Flight

      Photograph by Kitt Patten

      Which of the Houses

      Poem by Eleanor Berry

      Which of the houses

      where you once lived

      is less real

      for you now—

      the one close by

      where you lived longest, lived until

      it was lost to wildfire not

      two years back, or those

      still where you left them

      decades ago, in now-distant spots,

      which strangers give as

      their addresses?

      What of the one in the dream

      you had for years—the house that kept

      opening into rooms you hadn’t known were there,

      some resplendent, some a shambles?

      The house where you live now—when

      will its spaces, its sounds, the way

      light falls from its windows,

      become accustomed?

      And will this house

      be your last?

      Across the Fjord

      Nonfiction by Suzanne Johnson

      He leans in close, like he’s going to share a secret.

      I stay quiet, giving him time and space to tell me.

      These days, there’s no predicting what my father will say.

      Maybe he’ll tell the story about the moment he first saw my mother, across the room at the church mixer, laughing with a friend over a slice of chocolate cake, and knew he’d love her forever.

      Or maybe he’ll ask, for the hundredth time that day, why he is here in this hospital bed.

      He takes a deep breath, eyes wide and unblinking, and tells me his dream.

      * * *

      I wish I had my father’s eyes.

      They are the crystal blue of a high alpine lake and just as clear, even at ninety. His hands quiver, but his gaze is steady over bifocals perched on his peaked, Viking nose. That look, that quiet steady look, was his parenting superpower. He needed no words to make a daughter squirm a little bit and think about all the ways she could and should be a better person.

      For most of his life my father was a planner, always looking forward. Then my mother died, and his eyes could no longer see the future. He survived moment to moment, a solo parent shepherding three daughters into adulthood. These days his eyes focus on fond memories, his vision retreating to a time before I knew him.

      I do not have my father’s eyes but I did get his eyebrows, and that is no small thing. Unwieldy, unpredictable, untamable. On my father’s brow they look fierce, somewhere between the Old Testament God and Santa Claus. On his daughter they simply look unkempt, if not for regular trimming and plucking.

      * * *

      I keep having this dream, he tells me as he leans in, giving me the look. I raise my dad-given eyebrows, signaling that I am listening.

      In his dream he’s standing at the edge of a Norwegian fjord, looking across the still water to the mountains. It’s breathtaking, he says. Misty wisps of cool fog, a spectrum of grasses and stones up the hill, the water surface a deep blue mirror. Across the fjord he sees a person.

      He’s pretty sure he’s looking at himself, standing on the other shore. He’s not sure which version of himself is real. Behind this other self a path winds up into the mountains. The path is lined with rocks, and the rocks are glowing red. Pulsing like a heart, he says. My own heart begins to race and I hold my breath.

      It sounds beautiful, I say.

      Does this mean I’m checking out? He sounds so vulnerable.

      It’s a question for which I am wildly unprepared.

      * * *

      A short list of things a modern Viking, or a modern Viking’s daughter, should know about death:

      First, know that there will be an afterlife, and the options go beyond joining angels in heaven or demons in hell. The old Norse gods Odin, Freya, Ran, and Hel each rule their own afterworlds.

      When a Viking dies, these gods gather to consult. They’ll consider which realm is the best fit for this fallen mortal. One of the gods will claim that soul and spirit it off to their afterworld. Everyone fits in somewhere.

      Odin, the top dog among the Norse deities, is the god of war and ruler of Valhalla. In Valhalla, battles rage all day, wounds heal by nightfall, and the after-parties are wild and indulgent. Heroes and strong fighters head up his draft pick.

      Freya, goddess of love and beauty, seems to lean toward those who die righteous deaths, on or off the battlefield. Her realm is called Folkvangr, the field of the people. There will be epic battles but also poetry, and tenderness.

      Those who die at sea join the giant goddess Ran. Hers is a murky and mysterious underwater afterworld. Sailors tossed overboard by a North Sea squall spend eternity drifting through kelp forests with narwhal and giant squid for company. Peaceful, with its own beauty, but lonely and cold.

      Then there are the poor souls whose lives end by unglamorous, unrighteous means. Deaths by infections gone septic, by tripping off a cliff, by murder, by a broken heart that never heals. Hel sorts those souls into one of her nine underworlds, depending on how they lived their lives. Hel gives you what you deserve.

      After death, the best send-off for a Viking’s soul involves the body laid on a bed of tinder in a small wooden boat, drifting down a lazy river. The tinder is lit, possibly by a flaming arrow, so the smoke and ash can carry the spirit off to the realms of the gods.

      * * *

      My father leans back on his pillow, eyes closed. I think about where the red pulsing path across the fjord might lead. Not to Valhalla, I pray. He has survived his share of battles in this lifetime

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1