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.)

(credit)

“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

Found Things.

Cleaning out my computer, I found two things I wanted to share: a drawing created by one of my daughters two years ago or so, and a poem I wrote, who knows how old, now. I thought they went well together, and would buy me some time until I can come up with a real blog post! (It's been very, very hard trying to get back into the swing of things after the trip...)

(I touch with my hands. I touch you.)


I've learned so much since you've been away:
the small word,
overlooked,
that marries subject and predicate-
it has a name, as all things do:
it is called a copula.
Infinite ways to be joined,
taken apart, put right again.

I want to think of sweetness, love,
but my heart catches
on the ragged edge of
your absence.

So I have become obsessed
with other things,
the jade sliver of avocado
soft and yielding under my tongue,
the names of groups of animals,
stronger in number
than standing alone -

a pitying of turtle doves,
a gaze of raccoons,
a murder of crows.

This space is an ocean,
an eternity.
It is a comfort and a cruelty
that life goes on in its infinite wonder,
oblivious
to the absence of your honeyed eyes,
to the forgotten taste
of your imperfect mouth.

more. MORE.

Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea...

Homer, The Odyssey

Southern Lebanon.

Southern Lebanon.

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending

e.e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A.E. Houseman, Into My Heart an Air That Kills

Momo's, Beirut.

There is a Moroccan-themed lounge downtown (original location, London) that uses cute coasters printed with Moroccan sayings. It's funny how things can get lost in translation.

Delicious pastry at Momo's. Vanilla cream puff with passion fruit gelee.

Downtown Beirut.

Postcard for a pop-up shop, Beirut.

Expecto Patronum (or, Oh How I Wish).

I am a bit tired tonight, and no longer in Lebanon (more on that later!) but finally have internet that works, so I have to take advantage. I will finish up relating the Lebanon leg of my journey. It will provide welcome respite from the BBC's sports coverage (Thank God there were no cricket test matches!) and today's "Keep the Kids Walking So They Don't Realize How Far the Metro Station Is" activity: Twenty Questions (Harry Potter Edition).

So, about the first photo: I love this! I had recently been talking to my brother about Magritte and his painting, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", which is one of my favorite pieces of art. (I can't explain why; it makes me smile.) I came across this in the gift shop of Lebanon's National Museum, and it instantly reminded me of that painting. Granted, I need another empty, unlined notebook like I need a bushel of bunions, but I could not resist. I also bought one that actually says "ceci n'est pas une pipe" with a graphic of a hookah pipe, but in my efforts to promote non-smoking, I have refrained from posting the photo.

Sarcophagus depicting Priam begging Achilles for the body of Hector. National Museum, Beirut.

"Honor the gods, Achilles; pity him.
Think of your father; I'm more pitiful;
I've suffered what no other mortal has..."


I know I am partial to The Odyssey, but there are parts of The Iliad that brought hot tears of sorrow to my eyes. This is one of them. (Along, of course, with the actual death of Hector.)

The Kidnapping of Europa. Mosaic. National Museum, Beirut.

Ah, Europa, you Phoenician hussy! Climbing on to the back of a bull like that! That bull, of course, was Zeus, who had a fondness for fondling and for luring unsuspecting maidens into petting him (in various animal forms.) In this case, he turned into a bull, kidnapped Europa, and whisked her off. At least she got a continent named after her. (Much better than, say, "Stockholm Syndrome".)

The Birth of Alexander. Mosaic. National Museum, Beirut.

Now, call me crazy, but this should probably be called, oh, "The Toddlerhood of Alexander." Maybe he was a big baby, being The Great and all. Or maybe babies are hard to depict in mosaic. In any case, this was probably done after he was in power, because otherwise it would have just been a very time-consuming piece of art created for a random baby. (Ok, a random ROYAL baby.) Still, royal or not, I doubt anyone could have predicted how powerful he would become.

The National Museum, Beirut.

It is a tiny museum, probably the size of an exhibit at The British Museum, but lovingly restored and well-kept. It was sad that it was mostly full of tourists - the Lebanese are probably too concerned about the present to ponder the very distant past at the moment. That's actually a bit of a luxury, come to think of it. I was in a shop in the suburbs the other day, and the young woman helping me had a severe disfiguring burn covering half of her face. I saw quite a few people on the streets who had been injured in the latest war (2006): chemical weapons or cluster bombs, bullets or rockets. Does it really matter? They are thinking how to make their lives better today, for tomorrow. They could care less about crumbling Roman ruins when their own houses are in shambles, without proper electricity or water.

The 'Jealousy' Mosaic. Byzantine Period. National Museum, Beirut.

There was nothing too remarkable about this mosaic upon viewing, but then I saw the translation of the text:

Envy is a great evil; however, it has some beauty
for it consumes the eyes and the heart of the jealous.

I guess the more things change, the more they really stay the same.