May Dreams

    

 

 

 Ah, a new month. Another time to look at the self and consider renewal, or perhaps a time to look back and see where you've been. The first day is all in how you look at it, I suppose.

I am going to look at dreams today. I am still young enough to dream, to think that someday I might . . . what? What ARE my dreams?

My dreams, those real things I have at night, have generally been the stuff of horror films and freak shows. Full of dark things, real and unreal, making for long nights with real screams and wakings covered in sweat.

But those secret dreams - those things held close and dear, what of those? Those dreams of a husband, a house, all of that - I have those old dreams and desires. Dreams achieved.

Being a writer was always the number one dream, and I have obtained that, as well. But not the book. Still haven't written a book and I don't know that I ever will. I have written thousands of articles - there are thousands of entries in this blog, even.

I never wanted to write the Great American Novel anyway. I wanted to write . . . Nancy Drew books. I wanted to be a hack. I wanted to write under a pseudonym and write adventure stories for young women who would grow up to be senators and presidents, CEOs and leaders.

Then I went to college and I'm pretty sure that deflated that dream. Because at college, you were supposed to want to write literature (with a capital "L") - or poetry - or something else similarly "up there."

Sometimes I have written things that are "up there." I've won contests and published poetry. But I loved writing articles for the local paper. Loved it better'n chocolate even, and that's sayin' a lot.

Now that is (mostly) over, and I keep trying to turn my attention and talents elsewhere, only to be dragged back into articles and writing history pieces or doing the things I thought I was moving away from. A sign? Maybe. An inability to move forward? Maybe a little.

After all, I honestly don't know how to go about being a Nancy Drew ghost writer. For one thing, I don't think I could write for young women now. I am an older woman and I've never been around children much. I think there are basic desires and hopes all people have, and I could translate those into something, but I'd have to set them in the 1970s or some time that I am familiar with. I don't talk the language of the youth of today.

So no young adult unless perhaps I wrote a fantasy, where the language would be my own anyway, and only those basic desires, needs, and wants would be what mattered.

They are probably all that matter in any story. They are all that matter in dreams, I daresay.

So right now I am doing, not dreaming. Moving along trying to work on a project that is as scary as it is exhilarating. A time-consuming project at that, one that is forcing me to restructure my days and find a new rhythm. This is not a bad thing, just a different thing. Change is always needed and necessary for growth.

My dreams are in a growth phase, I think. Hiding behind the waning side of the moon, perhaps to pop out at me when the brightest star reaches its zenith. How will I know when I see it, I wonder? Will it grab me by the throat and shake me, saying, "Now!"? Or will it sneak up behind and whisper softly, caressing my neck, sending shivers down my spine, an idea that winds its way through my heart and into my soul until I can't stand not to deliver on it?