dreaming small.

As much as I love to dream, I think that maybe one of the things that I have learned is that sometimes "too much" is just "too much"  whether it is thoughts, ideas, dreams or things.   And it's through my "conversations" with you that I have begun to see that my dreams might serve me better if they pertain to the right here and the right now. 

So I've decided to make a new list of dreams.  Dreams for the immediate future.  I guess some would call them goals, but goals to me are "lose ten pounds"  or "get a promotion" or "save enough money for a new car or college".  Goals seem to me to be kind of strict and well, a bit boring.  I think what I want more than anything right now, is to spend my days with a sense of peace, with a sense of calm, with a sense of satisfaction.  So maybe I can come up with the "TO-DO" dream list to simplify and calm my life.

Like, planting flowers around my house, tidying up my basement, reading a book to my children each night, hanging some artwork on my bare walls, committing to actually finishing a book.

I'm ready to start making my current life my dream life and thus it is far more attainable and rewarding and far less likely to cause great amounts of stress.


So to start by simplifying and slowing down.  Slowing down is a hard thing for me to do. The very nature of being a working single mother of two young daughters makes it difficult, but I am vowing this month to start.  Take a task at a time.  Decide what is a priority and what can wait until later.

Tonight I tried.  I made a simple dinner for myself with no dishes to wash up.  I took some photos and edited them.  I drank a glass of wine and had a warm bath.  I took the dog for a long walk along the woods and discovered I have multitudes of little white moths living in my lawn.  I sat in the quiet of my daughters' room and held my little one's hand while she fell asleep. Then I crept into bed early and wrote you this letter before I roll over into what I hope to be a full and peaceful night's sleep. 

And really isn't that a dream come true right there?

Thank you, my friend, for pointing out to me that "dreaming  small" is sometimes the best gift you can give yourself.

a moment this week: Tuesday evening drive

Wildflowers growing on a churchyard wall: Debbie

Right Now 6:8 2011

A Message To The Little Photographer: Jennifer

Motherhood and what comes next

                                                                                                                             “Your children are not your children

                                                                                               They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself

                                                                                               They come through you but not from you

                                                                                               And though they are with you yet they belong not to you”

                                                                                                                                                    Kahlil Gibran, On Children                                                                                         

  

As a child I didn't know what to say in answer to the question what did I want to be when I grew up? All I ever wanted to be was grown up. Last year I was asked what I dreamed of as a 10 year old, and that is all I could say, I just wanted to be an adult. As I grew, I still didn't have any idea what I wanted to do, or be. I detested school and got out as soon as I could at age 16 with few qualifications, just enough to get me a job as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service. I did that for a while, then went to work in the magistrates' courts service. Those jobs were okay, some I liked more than others. I was glad to leave work to have my baby.

My son was born when I was 23 and yes, he was the focus of everything I did from then on. I found my vocation in being his mother, I loved it, and would have loved more children and to spend even more years raising them. It is the most interesting and rewarding thing I have ever done, by a long way. I loved watching him grow, helping him to discover the world. I even loved the fact that it was just the two of us, although it was sometimes hard, and there was never enough money. To make ends meet I took in ironing, did cleaning, babysitting, various little bits and pieces to earn a little extra money whenever I could. I rarely went anywhere without him, and from the age of eleven he was home educated which meant we went everywhere together almost all of the time. There was a lot of fun in our house, and a lot of love. There still is. 

He will be 20 years old in July. Over the years they need you less, but that is exactly what you want for them. All the time my son was growing up, I knew these days would come, but they seemed so far away and now all of a sudden, I don’t know where the years have gone. It doesn’t quite seem like the proverbial ‘yesterday’ when I was holding that little baby in my arms in the hospital,  but it seems like maybe five or six years, except that somehow in the intervening years I have become middle aged.

You asked, now he is older how do I look at where to go next? The honest answer is I don't really know. A few years ago I went back to work, but had to leave last year because of my ongoing health problems. Work, at least the jobs I have had, has never been very enjoyable. At least, I have never had a job that I would continue to do if I didn't have to for the money. I think most people just end up doing whatever pays the bills, and probably don't even think of what they would like to be doing. How wonderful it would be to have a job that you love!

For the past year or so a lot of my time and creative energies went into planning my wedding in April and now normal life has resumed. Like you, I have things I would like to do, or be. Somehow I don't quite know how to get there. I don't know where to start.

when i grow up.

I sat down the other day when we talked about revisiting dreams and thought not only about what I envisioned my dream life to look like from a sense of place but also from a sense of what I wanted to be doing.  How I wanted my "work" to represent myself.  It seems a bit ridiculous to be sitting at the age of "just shy of 40" and say I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.  I should be grown up, and I should be "something".

I loved what you said about not needing "big" dreams.  I like that your ideas for a happy future involve small things, like gardens and tortoises.  Whereas you say that you have never allowed yourself to reach out for something grand, I seem to be unable to rein mine in.  What I like so much about you is your sense of contentment in your place and I know that is not 100% true.  I know you think beyond the scope of your front door, but I can never seem to get away from the urgency of needing to be something other than what I am.

So I dream that little dream and then it happens....what always happens.  My mind takes off on a journey of it's own.  It's never simple enough as to be, say, "one day soon I hope to be a _____".  It goes something like this.

I want to work from home.  I want to be my own boss.  I want to be a writer, either magazine contributions, or books, novels or photo journals.  I want to be a photographer, having my work in a gallery, or selling off prints or postcards.  I could do unique and unusual portraits for people, capturing their innermost qualities and letting them shine through.  I want to work with young girls, those in  the midst of their awkward, self-involved teenage years or those on the brink.  I could work with them and help them find themselves through creative outlets.  I want to have classes or seminars where they can come and explore writing, or painting or sketching or photography and express without fear of retribution who and what they are becoming. I want to be a yoga instructor, teaching to children.  I've thought of being a teacher again, having dropped out of college in my early twenties to do just that.  I've dreamed of being a wellness professional, a park ranger, a bakery owner.

I do this until I have so many ideas of what I "could" do that I can no longer see through the clutter at what I "should" do.  I do this until I just sit down with my head stuck in the midst of too many thoughts and just give up.

Apparently I've never felt good enough to be just who I am.  Right now, I work as a bank teller, or a bank cashier as you would say, and it's good work.  I know I will bring home a paycheck every two weeks, I know there will always be enough money for me to buy groceries and clothing and a little more for nights out and little surprises.  I know that when one of us falls ill we have medical insurance that will pay for trips to the doctor and the medicines we need.  (We do not have national healthcare as you do, our medical insurance is paid partly by both your employer and yourself, if you are self-employed you pay the entire chunk.  As an employee, I pay $167.00 per pay as my portion for medical insurance just for myself, not counting the girls, so you can see how costly that would be if I didn't work or we just had to forgo it).

So there are reasons that I do what I do now.  The stability and the protection. I am the sole supporter of my girls, so I must do what I can in this given situation to provide for them.  My current job, though about half the pay grade I used to have, enables me to be at home on the weekends and to also leave only 10 minutes earlier and about 45 minutes later than the girls have school each day.  And thankfully, I have my father and grandparents who are both retired and live close to usher them to and from the school bus each day. So in the end the job I have now allows me to be the mother I need to be for my girls.  I can financially support them and I have (almost) enough time to be here when they need me to be "mom". 

In the end and after spilling all this out to you, it seems there is only one job that really matters to me and that is the job of "mother".  I think sometimes that perhaps that title is the only one that really matters and all the rest is just either a means to an end or a bonus.  If at the end of my days, I can say I raised the girls to become happy and strong women than perhaps no matter how I got there, that is the one thing I can be proud of.  I know that you raised your son alone and that you were responsible for a huge part of his education.  So what do you think?  Was motherhood for you the thing that guided what you did in life?  And now that he is older how do you look at where to go next?  I love these days growing my girls.  I cannot imagine what my life's purpose will be once they are grown.  So maybe, that is where all those big schemes that I listed above come into play.  Or maybe I will just look forward to getting a full night's rest or a little time to sit in the breeze uninterrupted and read a book.

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.

On Dreams...

(somewhere over Tennessee or Virginia today)

So is there a better place to ruminate on dreams than above the clouds on an airplane?  First I have to thank you for all you have done working us through these first couple days with this blog while I was 2,000 miles away from home on vacation.  It's a sign of an excellent partnership that we got this off to such a beautiful start with even more distance (and time zones) between us.

So I was thinking about what we were saying about dreams while I was on the plane today.  Right now I am at a very "scratch your head and wonder" kind of time in my life and when I think about the future I want to know if what I envision for myself and what I can make or want to make for myself can come true?

I won't list all my dreams here.  We've both made the lists and some of them are far too personal and some of them sometimes seem far too ridiculous.  The ones you've disclosed to me that you thought were too embarrassing or ridiculous I think are spot on and perfect for you.   But thinking about it, I sat on the plane today and thought well, why can't I take control of my life and make my every dream come true and what again is my dream for my future, has it changed since last year?  It seems sometimes our lives get pushed and pulled in varying directions and we find ourselves falling into old patterns or unsure of new paths and for selfish reasons, having given up so much in my previous life, I would love to put all my energy into continuing to make my way toward the life I have been dreaming for myself.

So I wrote down a few things today.   A little bit of a reminder and a recheck on where I would like to see my direction in life go.  Loose thoughts written on a piece of paper on an airplane, so here goes:

I want to live:

in a small house, cabin or cottage set back in the woods or a field, out in the country. wood, lots of wood. simple furnishings and decorating.  lots of inspirational artwork, clippings and maps on the walls.  decorated with small vases, rocks, and little bits of nature found.  airy and light.  minimalist but comfy and inviting.    a garden shed size studio out back or in a separate room, a wall to showcase clippings and other bits of inspiration.  a nice big wooden desk with a hutch for little bits and a laptop for writing and a space for laying out photos or pages for books.  a wood stove for winter and a screen door for summer and maybe a little porch to sit out and listen to the birds and soak up the sun.  a small garden, feeders for birds and a place for nature walks.  a comfy chair next to the stove with a good book and a cat as the sun goes down. 


In some ways, I have worked a lot of this into the home I have now, so maybe I am working towards this place and maybe one day if I stay focused I will get there.  I wrote some other notes on what I wanted to be doing in this future dream life, but that is for another day.  I am tired and ready to fall into my bed.  Funny enough, I am playing a song from the girl's goodnight playlist I created and am listening to Kesang Marstrand sing "lay your head down and let yourself travel, in the land of dreams, in the land of dreams.  the stories in your heart will start to unravel, in the land of dreams, in the land of dreams".

It's goodnight time here, which means you will be near waking soon.  I hope you have sunshine and a good cup of coffee and that you find yourself lost in your dreams, but not lost too much.