My Dreams

Wordle, created from my Dream list

Funnily enough, I am indeed sitting here with a good cup of coffee, sunshine streaming through the kitchen window. Lately I have been throwing some instant in a cup, but I decided to get the cafetière out.  

Of course, being me I had to immediately go and listen to that song. It’s lovely. I am an inveterate follower of links and looker-up of things, forever going off on a tangent following up something someone has said, or I have read or seen somewhere. I can get lost down an internet rabbit hole for hours. Days.

The list of dreams that I wrote last autumn is scribbled on a folded piece of A4 paper that I tucked away inside a journal, and forgot. Reading the list now, months after I wrote it, I find some of the things I wrote down are starting to happen, others don’t attract me so much anymore, and there are new ones I would like to add. I am struck by the fact that neither writing nor photography made it on to the list, yet I know that it was the process of dreaming, of writing that list, that led me to write again and to start taking photographs.

It took several difficult days to be able to write down those dreams at all. I found it hard to acknowledge there were things I wanted that were seemingly out of reach. Maybe admitting I wanted them was like inviting failure, I don’t know. I used to say I didn't have any dreams, mine didn't seem big enough to deserve the title.  Somehow I felt that I should want to backpack around the world, or excel at something marvellous. I have come to realise that not all dreams have to be big as diving with sharks (my brother) or skiing down a mountain (my friend Gail) or getting a PhD in Medieval History (my husband). Dreams are a very individual thing. Some of us just want to plant a garden, listen to the birds, and watch the tortoises, and some of us don’t know what we want until we give ourselves permission to dream. 

Nowadays, I am dreaming a lot more. That little house of yours sounds a lot like the one in my dream...but maybe mine would be on the very outskirts of a town. Maybe it would have beautiful countryside views, birds in the garden and peace and quiet...and have a regular bus service to the cathedral town where there are craft shops, a farmer's market, pavement cafés where I can eat cheesecake, drink cappuchino and write. Maybe my house would have a cottage garden. Lupins, foxgloves, rambling roses, sweet-peas, side by side with the vegetables and herbs. At least one tortoise. I love tortoises! Something about a tortoise is so wise and ancient, like a little dinosaur. 

Like you I also have some of the things I have mentioned already. I grow sweet-peas  tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, though this year I fear I have left it too late, I was busy at planting time, planning my wedding. I have a fragrant rambling rose, called 'Wedding Day', a present from my son, waiting to be planted by our front door. I have birds visiting the garden, though the neighbours' cats scare off all but the most intrepid. Ours is a quaint little house - nothing special on the outside, we can't do much with it as we rent - but it is quirky, cottage-style.  My dream house is tidier, more organised, nicely decorated, is filled with flowers from the garden and the scent of baking, despite the fact that I have hardly baked in my life. These are all reachable dreams, something to be going on with, working toward. 

I have other dreams: the impossible, the silly, the potentially embarrassing (just who does she think she is?). Those are staying on that piece of paper, tucked away. Some of them might see the light of day....when they come true.