A Dream Is A Wish (Your Heart Makes).

Harlem

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

   We know dreams are powerful. Literature and history and music and art are all brimming with themes dedicated to the raising of hope and the shuttering away of doubt. I first realized the hold that dreams can have through one of my favorite stories as a child, "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Andersen. If you are not familiar with it, and you may not be, because you prefer bright sunshiney tales that feature unicorns and rainbows and pots of gold, it is sad. (Sad things and I go together like dubstep and hipsters in Park Slope.) Because I am lazy, I offer this, from Wikipedia:

On a cold New Year’s Eve, a poor girl tries to sell matches in the street. She is freezing badly, but she is afraid to go home because her father will beat her for not selling any matches. She takes shelter in a nook and lights the matches to warm herself. In their glow, she sees several lovely visions including a Christmas tree and a holiday feast. The girl looks skyward, sees a shooting star, and remembers her deceased grandmother saying that such a falling star means someone died and is going into Heaven. As she lights her next match, she sees a vision of her grandmother, the only person to have treated her with love and kindness. She strikes one match after another to keep the vision of her grandmother nearby for as long as she can. The child dies and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by find the dead child in the nook. 


Nice, right? I know, I'm stretching here; it's not so much as a dream as vivid hallucinations brought on by hypothermia. The point is, The Little Match Girl held hope in her sooty little head, even if it was a false one, and it comforted her.
 .
But when does a dream become a burden? The June 2012 issue of Psychology Today features a wonderfully biting article by Augusten Burroughs titled, "How To Ditch a Dream".  Burroughs says:


"...(T)here are many, many people who do not need to be told to cling to their dreams; they need to have those fantasies wrenched from their little fists before they waste their entire lives trying to achieve them. 


I am one such person."


I laughed heartily at his familiar self-depreciating humor (thankfully, the article was free of his other hallmark: shockingly lurid descriptions of past abuses suffered at the hands of...oh, everyone) then stopped short. HE'S RIGHT!  I panicked. You are now reading a blog post, so chances are, dear reader, you are familiar with the internet, and the phenomenon known as YouTube. Or Facebook. Or, actually, Blogger. The internet is FULL of people who think they have talent (ahem, all kinds of talent, or so I hear from anecdotal evidence). You know that this is not so. Their talents are greatly exaggerated. Except for that one guy who...never mind. You understand. So what if I AM ONE OF THEM? (This, incidentally, is partially the reason for my departure from the blog. Not that one guy - the fear that I am a no-talent hack showing off.) But I digress.


When do we give up on our dreams? The real ones. The ones that keep us warm at night like the poor Little Match Girl, and the hopes that raise us afloat during the day, promising better tomorrows and ever afters? And how do we keep living when all hope seems lost? It's not in me to give up. So I won't. But I will always wonder if I'm doing the right thing.


(PS sorry I called you "dear reader". The only thing I dislike more that that is "What say you?" I will try to refrain heretofore.)

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes - Cinderella

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics

All I Have To Do Is Dream - The Everly Brothers

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - Green Day

Muss Es Sein? (Yes.)

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“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” 

-Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

from "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

A few days ago, I had my hair done again. No longer ginger, I am quite firmly back in the land of brunette. The shade is billed ostensibly as "Coffee Bean", but in reality is more "Bella Without Her Edward": a deep, dark, lustrous shade that is perfect for the upcoming days when Persephone is bidding us all goodbye.
As usual, my makeover came with a side of philosophy, thanks to the spot-on observations of my stylist. This go-round, we were talking about change, and how easy it is for some folks, and how difficult for others. He said, "Sometimes you see people standing on the edge of that cliff, looking down at those churning waters below. Some of them stay there forever, just wondering what will happen, feeling the breeze on their face but not quite wanting to take the leap. Some jump, and get crushed against the rocks, and others may disappear a bit under water, but next thing you know, they are waving up at you saying, 'Come in!! The water's great!' You never know how it's going to turn out, do you?"

Of course I thought of Kundera. I have read The Unbearable Lightness of Being countless times, and every time it speaks to me in a different way. Unmarried and struggling with my own intense thoughts and emotions, I identified so strongly with Tereza. As I grew older, I understood the cad Tomas much more, realizing his depth. Yes, I know how reviled the book is in some circles: ostentatious literary pornography! Kundera hates women, and objectifies them! Too philosophical! Yet. Perhaps it is because I discovered the book at a critical point in my intellectual development. Or something. So many of the ideas were so new to me, then, the way of thought so original and moving. Just the sort of book a girl wearing Doc Martens and a sundress (topped off with a very New Wave haircut) could tuck under her arm while meandering across campus. (I meandered a lot as an undergraduate.)

The idea of "not knowing what to want" is so universal. How many of us have stood on that cliff, not knowing whether or not to jump, and wondering (as Kundera's Tomas wondered, via Beethoven) "Must it be?" when assessing our fate. And yes, in some ways it must be. What seems like choice, isn't. It is only the bitterness of contemplating two (or more) unpalatable options, a scenario played out again and again on the stage of human history. Frost advocates taking the less obvious path, which seems, at first blush, to be the brave thing to do. But is being brave really all it's cut out to be? Anyway, easy enough for him to shun cowardice from the comfort of his own carriage, horses well-fed and healthy. What if he had to make it through the woods on a snowy evening on foot? I think he would want to go On The Path Very Heavily Traveled So That Perhaps Someone Could Kindly Prevent Me From Becoming  Frost-Bitten.

Maybe the failing is believing there is one correct path. Is it possible that the right answer could be several things at once? How do we know which way to go?

Beethoven -String Quartet No. 16

Cowboy Junkies - Misguided Angel

George Jones - Choices

Juice Newton - Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me

O, I Am Fortune's Fool!

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I wonder if I should just go ahead and apologize in advance that this is not a food-related post. The response was so enthusiastic, I definitely will do more!

In the spirit of trying to become more blog-worthy, I have decided to try and court adventure. You may say that what I should be doing is trying to REPEL it, but that is really not in my nature. Sigh.

A friend suggested a while back that I visit a tarot card reader, just to get some clarity and focus in my life (note: clarity and focus do not go well with adventurousness.) I thought it would be an interesting experiment. I have sometimes been curious about fortune-telling, but mostly dismiss it. Remember Miss Cleo? No? Good. I had the vision that palm readers and their ilk were nothing more than glorified carnies, swathed in silks and bathed in myrrh and something that smelled awfully like Brut Cologne. Not particularly a pleasant thought.

Today, however, I decided to take the leap. I don't know what it was: maybe the fact that a shopping excursion resulted in a receipt totaling $7.77 - but something made me feel if not lucky, not cursed. It would be fun, right? Nothing too specific in mind or heart - just an urge to see what the stars had laid out for me.

I was warned by my friend that the - what would she be, seer? - was very blunt, and if I was going to die, or be sick, or anybody else I loved was going to meet some foul end, she wouldn't hesitate to say. With this knowledge in my back pocket, I rang the bell at the appointed time.

The woman that answered the door was tiny. I am 5'7", and she barely made it to my shoulders. You do the math, because I am tired (and keep in mind that I am fairly evenly proportioned; I don't have coltish legs or a short torso.) Olivia is a caretaker of the elderly during the day, and reads tarot out of her home on evenings and weekends. Everybody's gotta have a side gig in this economy, I guess.

She led me to a room no bigger than a shoebox. I sat on one side of a small table that looked like the type you would prop your dinner on while watching TV and she on the other. A red cloth placemat lay in the center. She handed me the cards, and told me to shuffle, then split them into two stacks.

The cards were greasy and thick with wear. Olivia explained that her parents taught her the craft, but one had to have the gift to interpret correctly. I knew from my friend's stories of all the accurate predictions Olivia had accrued: marriages and deaths and pregnancies and jail time and deportations, so I was hopeful (and worried) that she would prove to be right.

She slapped the cards down with authority, and began. I had been careful to dress blandly, not wanting to give anything way, and also had decided to let her do most of the talking. I didn't want to goad her or give her any ideas. Right away she launched into my story: two daughters close in age, that I was prone to depression and emotional instability even though I seemed to have everything. I was born under, for lack of a better, more elegant term, a big-ass lucky star. She told me to watch out for my older daughter - that I needed to spend more time with her and teach her how to have more self-confidence, because her sister was dominating her (very true.) She went on in great specificity about my marriage, unusual problems I was having with specific friends, the work that I was doing (great success is on the horizon!). Some of the things hit very close to home and stung like a slap. It was uncanny. A whole hour for twenty bucks! It was like a mental massage. But more painful. At least there was no death or destruction on the horizon, but she said I had to be very careful, because I like to court danger. Me?

I left somewhat shaken. A lot of things she said had hit right on the mark. Others, not so much. But the things that did were very specific. It was eerie, but should it really have been?

I think that after a long while, people can get very good at what they do. It's the natural result of practice and passion. Maybe she's just good at reading people, not cards. Olivia seemed like a nice lady; I don't think she would deliberately mislead someone, but I think it is impossible to ignore cues in people's body language and responses, even if (like me) they tried not to respond too much. In the end, it felt a bit like going to a therapist or spending some time with a good friend talking about important things: heart-clearing. And for me, it felt good. Even if she couldn't give me the winning lottery numbers.

Frank Sinatra - Luck Be a Lady

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Fortune Faded

Gin Blossoms - Mrs. Rita

The Rolling Stones - Fortune Teller

The Ties That Bind (or, Of Gods and Men).

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"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break." -Chinese proverb

After my last post, I thought to myself: "Self! You should write about something happy and carefree! Maybe post some photos of kittens, or puppies...babies, perhaps. Things that make you happy!" Then this week was suddenly upon me, with nary a furry creature or cherubic bundle in sight (except for the rather mischievous beady-eyed squirrel that gleefully munches on tomatoes from my backyard plant.)

Instead, I was faced with a sudden proliferation of ghosts, real (the kind that made me flee Facebook suddenly and without much regret) and imagined (the inner demons of a tortured soul, made weaker by nerve-shredding preteen girls.) The happy post will then have to wait, in favor of the pensive. (Admission: Babies don't make me particularly happy, unless they belong to other people and I can give them back quickly once they start fussing. I am actually quite frightened of them.)

I have been thinking a lot about the ways we are all interconnected, through communities and language and common interests and a thousand other things. What is it that brings us together, binds us close to some people and not others? It's funny, isn't it. Even though every person is unique, how many people around the planet overlap that uniqueness? If I said, "Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?" how many of you would scratch your heads, and how many of you would light up and laugh, because a specific memory was stirred up? (And if there is nary a one of you that knows that of which I speak, well then, run away! Run away!)

The metaphor of strings is powerful. The ancient Greeks were particularly fond of stories involving thread: Penelope waiting for Odysseus, weaving her endless tapestry; Ariadne gifting Theseus with a ball of string to help him find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth; Arachne getting into an ill-advised weaving competition with Athena. We can be high-strung, or strung along (or, strung out.) I came across the above proverb here at StoryCorps, in a story about adoption. StoryCorps, if you are unfamiliar with it, is an oral history project, and anyone can participate. It's unbelievably interesting to listen to stories about people's lives: their troubles, accomplishments, hopes. Something about it makes you feel a little less adrift in the world.

I love things that make me feel connected to a greater whole. There is another site, The Speech Accent Archive, that is absolutely fascinating. People from all over the world, with different native tongues, read the same fairly nonsensical English passage. Each language has several examples, with male and female speakers from different regions repeating the same handful of words. It's wonderful to compare a native Kirghiz (from Kyrgyzstan! Who knew?) speaker to myself, or to a native Bosnian or Icelandic speaker. I love it when the big, wide world feels just a bit more cozy.

What do you think about connection? Not just romantic - all kinds. Why do we meet who we meet? And when that connection is strong, does it really last forever, even when it may seem to be broken apart? Where does all that energy go?

The Magnetic Fields - You're My Only Home

Blue October - Calling You

The Features - Lions