Electric Light Orchestra sings about holding on tightly to your dreams but I tell my kids you need to go a different way because dreams are like water.
And everyone knows what happens to the water in the palm of your hand if you squeeze too tightly. So I tell them to be prepared to pivot, adjust and pivot again.
I tell them the joy of life is in the journey and let them know it took me a long time to figure that one out in a way that made sense to me.
Who Are You?
It is the tail end of a meeting and the guy I am speaking with me tells me I am one of the most serious people he has ever met.
A huge smile washes across my face and he can’t help but comment on how he just noticed a look in my eyes that he hasn’t seen before.
“I don’t know whether to be surprised or frightened. That look makes me wonder what is going on inside your head.”
I laugh and tell him there are a lot of people that would be shocked to hear him describe me as being so serious.
We go back and forth for a moment or two and I explain in professional settings I want people to view me as a being credible, reliable and responsible first.
He asks if I ever worry about people viewing me as being stiff and uptight and I tell him it is possible.
But there have also been lots of occasions where people remarked about how loose and relaxed I am.
“I can’t control what they think but I can try to guide that initial impression.”
My daughter and I are talking about people and I am actively listening her to describe some situations she has encountered and silently shaking my head.
Middle school is a crazy time where you throw a bunch of little people who no longer want to be viewed as little into a giant fishbowl.
Add a double dash of hormones and uncertainty and a desire to fit in but still be different and you have one hell of a human casserole to dig into.
She wants to know if I am as laissez faire about relationships as I appear to be and I nod my head.
“I have some wonderful friends and I don’t care if people like me. It helps to know how to go along and get along with others, so I do my best to make that happen.
But if you are a jerk and I don’t have to interact with you I won’t. I just ignore you and go about my business.”
I don’t mention sometimes her old man wants to call the folks of some girls she knows so that I can ask them if they are intentionally raising mean children who lack compassion and who are focused upon their social climbing abilities.
Nor do I mention that in some cases I am certain the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and the only purpose in calling is to say, “you are an awful person, a bad parent and I want you to eat a dozen of these Ex-Lax brownies.”
Midway into the thought I remember a conversation with a friend who is an attorney who tells me he would never blog because he doesn’t want to worry about the liability that might come with it.
Makes me sad to have watch things like that or qualify the bit about the brownies by saying I wouldn’t do it or encourage anyone to do it.
It is included but it adds flavor and humor to the post and that helps retain readers.
Hold On Loosely To Your Dreams
Part of the joy in writing these posts is never knowing where they will go. I start with a simple idea and follow a thread to see where it leads.
There is joy in that journey too.
Spent a chunk of time staring at the stars outside my window and thinking about what picture I should use. Wondered if some others might be better or more useful.
Thought about tell you all about how I found that horse waiting for me in Santa Monica Mountains and the adventures he and I had riding to Texas, Cleveland and Hawaii.
Yeah, I know horses can’t ride across water but that is because you constrain yourself to what you know and I don’t.
I am like Picasso and I see possibility and ask why not. More importantly, if we are writing about dreams I don’t have to limit myself to what is real.
Tom Petty is singing American Girl now and my imagination is opening up even wider than it is enormous normal size.
Don’t know what it is about that song, but something about it always makes me think of dreams answered and filled.
During times of uncertainty and change you really can’t ask for much more than that, maybe a horse with no name that you can ride through the desert, but I digress.
Dreams & The Space They Occupy
Somewhere between the end of American Girl and Cat Steven’s singing Tea For The Tillerman my phone started buzzing like crazy.
Got a gazillion comments, emails and messages about the state of the world.
Words about Harambe the gorilla, Cecil the lion and the awful tale about child killed by the alligator in Orlando.
Hard and harsh comments book ended by people talking about the Orlando massacre and a general sense of dismay.
It reminds me that I need to remind my children that the world has always been in flux in one way or another and that while we shouldn’t ignore the bad we shouldn’t let it be the only thing we focus upon.
There is still a ton of good people and good things that are around us and they don’t always get the same attention.
There is still room and opportunity for dreaming and for dreams to come true. You just have to hold on loosely.
