Dream new dreams - I'm talking the unhinged kind: money and fears aside. Throw everything out the window for just one hour and uncage your imagination. In another 5 years, what things will you still be wishing for...unless you make a plan now...unless you do something now? An attempt is more success than never trying at all.
Sitting comfortably on my return flight home that first summer in Africa, a very strange thought alighted on my warped and tired brain. It waited quietly for me to notice it, looking into my eyes, watching my pen scribble languidly down my journal page. Fingers tired, I put my pen down and looked up to meet the little eyes of the little thought sitting, awaiting my attention. It smiled. Dream a new dream, it said. A new dream? Head cocked, still holding my gaze, it replied: A new dream. It's time for a new dream. It continued. You have lived this one out. You have worn it and worn it out. You have partaken and eaten it in its fullness. You have spun it and woven it to its end. What is the new dream? The idea that I had actually, finally, lived out my greatest dream to its completion froze me in a long moment of surprise and pondering. I had dreamed it for so very long, ached for it, begged for it, cried about it, worked for it - and now I had lived it. "What next?" seems an obvious question, but it was one I had not expected to ask myself for a long time, if ever. And there I was, 20 years old, holding fragrant ashes of a dream that lived only in my mind since the age of 6. Fourteen years, for a 20 year-old, is most of a lifetime, so to face the question, "what next?" was mere puzzlement.
For those of you who followed my journey back to Ethiopia this summer, you know that indeed, I dreamed a new dream and lived it out too. Of course, that means that once again, I'm facing the same question, what next? This time, however, I face it not with trepidation but with avidity. I'm thirsty from spilling ideas everywhere, hungry with an appetite encouraged by previous adventures. Karen gave a gift that won't ever be matched. Karen few my dreams, gave me the hope to dream, to try, and to know that even if a dream is not fully realized, at very least I tried. If tried and I know and that is what I ask for first.
Sometimes I take an hour on a Friday afternoon, such as today. I sit with my notebook or at a compute with a satisfying keyboard, streaming the thoughts and imaginations of my mind onto the pages. Some of them I'll never chase, but writing them out helps me sort out the ones that are most important. Thoughts and more thoughts shape the dreams, plans evolve, action is inspired. Certain lines, particular words - lingual fire on a the page - attract my attention. I'm already running down another fork in the road to see what will happen if I chase it. It might be a dead end; I may have to turn back. But then it is no longer that road I passed too many times, wondering where it led it.
