Childhood Dreams

My local public library is currently featuring some pretty fantastic kid art. The theme of the project is to write about your dreams. One librarian's example was that she has a recurring dream that her teeth fall out (the internet tells me that this either means she's going to come into some money or that she's under a lot of stress). The students ran in all directions with the assignment and there were so many cute responses. Some were about dreams that they had while sleeping, others drew depictions of their dream occupation or their greatest fantasy. I snapped some shady, pixelated pictures with my phone. But I think it was worth the awkward creeper moment.

This little girl knows exactly what kind of life she wants to lead. And who wouldn't want to be such a beautiful mermaid?! I love the big, swirly bubbles.

The left photo reads: "My dream is... eating a double decker pizza." (And seriously, I want to try that. Don't you? Although I'm thinking the picture isn't quite capturing the concept. This looks more like triangulated pizza.) The other reads: "My dream is... I am in the cloud." (How deep can a 5 year old get? And that isn't some fluffy white cloud, it's a thunderhead.)

Below you'll find another couple surrealists. The left one reads: "My dream is... meeting a caveman and him leading me into a video game." And then there is a tsunami (great spelling, kid!) chasing the kid in the ocean. (This kid has some crazy dreams! Really? Time travel, turning into a videogame, natural disasters? I think maybe this is a plotline from a 90's teen movie.) And on the right: "My dream is... I will fall from the roof and fly like a bird with wings."(This kid and the cloud kid need to get together and start a writing group. There's something so beautiful, and also haunting, about this dream to fly. Not just fly, but fall off the roof first. As though the fear of falling is a necessary step in learning to soar.)

 When we are children, there is no shortage of dreams. My reoccurring dream when I was small was that Garfield was trying to eat me. (Try to explain the meaning of THAT one, internet.) But I also had lots of dreams for my future. I wanted to be a cartoonist. I dreamed that I would be a famous playwright. I prayed every night before I went to bed that God would let me be in just one movie before I turned 16. I was certain that if I met Devon Sawa he would be as determined in his love for me as I was for him. These dreams were maybe not the most consequential or practical dreams, but they were so real to me. they were all consuming. I wrote about them, talked about them, prayed about them constantly.

As I grew a little older -but was still oh so young- I started to dream of being a wife a mother. Of keeping a certain kind of house.  Living little moments filled with big love, like something out of the last scene of a romantic comedy. I didn't think much about my profession or of my accomplishments, but mostly fantasized about the feelings I would have: of completion, contentment and satisfaction. These seemed the rewards to be reaped from a live well lived in the building of a family.

Then, when it became harder to focus on what I didn't have (mainly the "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" complex) I intentionally tried to stop dreaming so much about about relationships. At first, my dreams were structured around my profession. I imagined myself growing a life in non-profit management and perhaps entrepreneurial efforts in social services. It seemed as I got older, my dreams became more practical. But you know, that is just so boring.

Why should dreams be practical? Dreams are dreams. They need not be bound by the trappings of reality. They are supposed to be to high to reach. I am supposed to want to be in the cloud. So here's a new dream. 

I want to float on an innertube down the Mississippi river, from Lake Itasca to the Gulf, linked up with 20 of my closest friends and family members. (Heck, let's make it 50!) I want the sun not to burn our skin and for our toes not to wrinkly. There will be a bluegrass band floating on a raft behind us providing the entertainment. I dream that our meals will fall from the sky like manna, but be more like kielbasa, spinach pies, and spring rolls depending on our mood. I want the weather to be perfect, 75 and partly shady with a warm rain once every now and then. If, when we reach the ocean, we all want to do it again, I want the river to reach up, like the arm of a man, to it's beginning and plop us back down for a second ride.

It's just one dream of many that I have. One day, it might happen in some strange, roundabout ways. Or, who knows, one day I may fall from the roof and fly like a bird with wings.

3 Reasons I Love My Local Public Library

1. The VHS selection in the Children's Area.  Perusing the shelves in the Children's Video section of the Tipp City Library is like time-traveling to my own childhood. Today, I came home with a fistful of old videos. The clear, plastic cases are scratched to a dull grey with hand written dewey letters and numbers on the beaten spines. I marked several for-later-rental, Mighty Ducks, Ninja Turtles, and some Shirley Temple numbers to name a few. Today's take-home winners were: Pollyanna, Angels in the Outfield, and a Huff Family favorite: Sarah Plain and Tall. 

If you aren't familiar with the latter, you should be schooled. The film is based on Patricia Maclachlan's Newberry and Scott O'Dell award-winning children's novel of the same name. It is about a woman from Maine who moves out west to become a companion to a lonely widower and his two children. Made for television by the Hallmark Hall of Fame, the movie features a young Christopher Walken as a soft-spoken, heart-broken farmer and Glenn Close as Sarah, an independent (and plucky!) romantic with a penchant for poetic descriptions of daily life. This was my introduction to both actors, so you might imagine my surprise when I found out Christopher Walken was not usually cast as a kind, quiet, rural gentleman. In my heart, he's still just a sweet lil' leading man.

Images of Walken and Close in "Sarah Plain & Tall"

2. You can sit and read for free without ever buying a cup of coffee.  I like a coffee shop as much as the next girl, maybe more. But I'm a thrifty booger that hates to spend money on things she can easily make at home. Still there is one thing that you get at a coffee shop for which there is no homemade facsimile: a sense of community. Even if you don't speak a word except to order a cuppa-jo, there's a homey togetherness feeling to a good coffee shop. An ambiance that makes the overcharged bean juice worthwhile. Except, that you can get all that for free in a good library. Big picture windows, rocking chairs and couches, surrounded by words penned over hundreds of years of human thought. The perfect place to finger through magazines to which you can't afford subscriptions.  

3. All are welcome. Men and women old and young all frequent the library. And, yes, maybe the purpose of the facility has changed. Mainly, there is less book reading and more movie rental. But the institution remains important to the area. It is a place to receive information about taxes, local history, and it is a public space- often, the only one with a free gathering place. Today, as I finished a book on a couch in the front of the Tipp Public Library, I witnessed: elderly men and women chatting over the contents of their reading list, a quilting group, teenagers flipping through periodicals, and a clutch of pre-teen boys sneaking snacks out of crinkly brown paper bags. There's something beautifully old-fashioned about a Library, I hope that others see their charm and importance as I do. I would hate to see them stage out of our societies with the influx of a more digital world. 

On a side note. When I left the library this afternoon, I found a slip of paper folded over and wedged in my car's driver's side window. I had a note written in slanting cursive. It reads:

1-30-12, 3PM

Hello. What year is your Saturn? Does it burn oil? Mine is a 2000 SL2. It burns oil!! 

         Phyllis   (She signed her full name and gave her phone number.)

Though the note is charming -in a small town way that would have been creepy in a big city- I am not sure what to do with it. Should I call this stranger and exchange notes on our oil leakage? My car does, in fact, leak quite a bit but there's nothing to be done about it at this stage in its life. Do I call and tell her that? 

I imagine this sweet, old woman who saw my car thought that, if I had been in ear shot, the coincidence of our similar vehicles would have lead to a nice conversation. Probably, she is in need of a conversation today and I understand that sentiment. I can truly empathize. I have said only a few words out loud today. Most of them were to myself. These past few months living on my own have helped me gain quite a bit of insight into the solitary life. I'm surrounded by friends for a good portion of my week, so this isn't a call out for sympathy, just an acknowledgement of God teaching me new lessons daily. 

Little shared moments mean so much to so many. I am so grateful for the multitude of friendships I have. I am blessed to be a part of a large community, but not everyone is so surrounded by relationship. As I walk my day through and entwine with other lives on the way, it is important that I make every interaction, with strangers and friends alike, one that communicates respect and love and inclusion.