Monday I opened my list and I did not feel excited or happy or challenged or ready. Not ready at all. I find this ironic as I have approached this dreaming class with a good deal of confidence and assurance in my own Mind and Heart that this is where I am meant to be.
And I still have the love of this class and this process, but Monday? Not so much.
So this is the doubt part, right? But it does not feel like doubt so much as fatigue, great exhaustion, not enough uumph to even really tackle the reading of the list, the contemplation of these so-called dreams.
They struck me as fanciful or silly or really really impossible. Some I can do...but those run along the lines of 'sew something'. Some I am a little embarrassed by, some I am totally frightened by. And yes, to be truthful, some seemed just right.
The thing about dreaming is it can be hard, right? Especially when it is tried from the space of a Mama with sick kids, an aching tooth requiring too much money to fix, work that spirals out of control and out of reach, a spouse that I love dearly but that is struggling in his own ways this week, a knitting project that tangled into a really horrible mess and self imposed dead lines that loom, hanging over everything.
This week I realized I have granted mySelf a little bit of breathing room to deal with the above. Conversely it can be said that I pushed my dreams down further and out of sight, but I like to think I will be getting back to them. I began this course by embracing each lesson immediately, but this week I read the lessons then gave mySelf permission to let them sit and linger without too much action on my part. I don't want to hammer my dreams into the folds of my current life, I want them to dance gracefully into our days when they are ready.
I wanted this week to look like this, all brilliant and green and glowing.
Instead I felt limp and worn out, and about as pretty as a dishrag. With a toothache, to boot.
But I still want to post up the list, start this next week open and vulnerable and exposed. So here it is ::
Buy our vanagon and sew it a perfect pair of curtains. Be in New York for Blogher '10 just so I can meet my blog idols. Go to Canada for 2 months with the boys in the vanagon. Go back to school to be a doctor. Go back to Perth and drink beer at Little Creatures with awesome Australians. Meet Bon and Kate, Andrea and Jen and Neil. someday Meet Ben. Move to Canada, buy a farm and raise sheep and grow a garden. Buy the Paradise resort, restore the restaurant and cabins and make it a center for gathering yogis, artists, writers, mountain bikers, boarders and dreamers. Raise buffalo on acres of land just North of Yosemite and South of Tahoe. Home school my children. African dance, modern dance. Dance. Choreograph a whole dance concert to the soundtrack of Mr. Bungle. Meet Jessica Whitt and hug her. Avoid cancer. Sew my own pair of jeans over and over. Hand embroider a dress. Own a Mercedes. Travel easily and lightly whenever we choose. Have a 'home' every place we go. Teach my children to tap dance. Go to Bhutan as a volunteer PT for three months. Take the family too. Live in France for a year and speak French everyday. Participate in a downhill mountain bike race. Be free of the monetary world in the way of sustainable living :: solar power compost toilets food production. Make a wedding ring quilt. Go to Africa to dance with my sisters. Take photos of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas (again.) Go to NYC to see old friends and make new ones. Be a professor of Physical Therapy. Have so much disposable income I can give it away. Have one more child, easily (not twins). Go to Iceland. Go to Alaska and hike for 7 days. Watch my boys grow old. Make friends that last, that care, that like Me, that are complex and smart and whole. Not grow old and sick and demented.
I did find two things that helped me a lot this week ...
:: I uploaded this piece of Jen Lemen art to my desktop so that I could be reassured daily when turning on the laptop to tackle overwhelming and underwhelming work tasks.
:: Placing my own Hope Note in the car to remind myself that I am not going at this in a vacuum.
Next post :: An Accounting of things I did this week that took some Action on my part, even though I did not mean to.
Sweet soul.
ReplyDeleteThat is a magnificent list!
I know you will do every single thing on that list.
EVERY. SINGLE. THING.
And a lot more besides.
Remember what SARK said in the interview in the first week: "Our dreams never go away."
John Lennon once said, "Life is something that happens while we are busy making other plans."
You are where you need to be right now. You are a mama, a wife, a human being. Doing the best that you can.
Your hope note is perfectly right -- you are not alone. Right now, the universe is conspiring to pave the way for your dreams so that when the time is right, things will unfold as they need to.
It's all good.
PS We have a Little Creatures in Melbourne now... and it's walking distance from my house! :-)
I love your list. I love that you posted it even though you were having a crap week and hard time getting into it. It tells me something.
ReplyDeleteI have to believe there is an amazingly ridiculous benefit to our kids in having moms who dare to think these things.
If they were to come and show you their list, I bet you would not tell me them it was silly or impossible. Hard? For sure. So please don't do that to you.
I have looked at my own lists over the years and felt they were so unattainable... but it is interesting reading someone else's list and thinking "wow what a great list! What amazing things this gal is going to do" and it seems all doable... things people like you and me do every day. You can do this!
ReplyDeleteOh no! I've just realized that I'm being directed away from the captchas. I have no idea if my comments have gone through or not. I don't remember what I said here. Something aobut loving Jen Lemen.. and hoping you aren't looking at that while driving. And that without the peaks and valleys, life would just be flatlined. Or something. Damnit!
ReplyDelete