Dreamers...

What does it mean to be a dreamer? In today's world, the word has taken on some rather political and racial connotations.  When I use the word, I can see some of my friends tense up, anticipating a diatribe on freedom and opportunity.

But today, I'm not talking about those Dreamers.  Instead, I'm talking about the everyday person who has aspirations and hopes for more.  Really, they're not so different, but I digress.

What does it mean to be a dreamer? Well, it means hard work.  I haven't met anyone who was a successful dreamer who didn't pour themselves into their calling.  To be a dreamer means that you're picking a path that is not always easy.  Life isn't easy, especially nowadays.  It seems like there's so much hurt in the world, so much division and conflict.  Is there more than there used to be?  Is this time and this place more negatively charged than before?  I don't think so.  We're just seeing it now.  And once you see it, it's hard to go back to blissful ignorance.  Once you know the world is hurting, it's hard not to hurt with it.  To be a dreamer though is to see something that isn't there and make it so.  To be a dreamer is to take the glitter of star-shine and moonbeams and nocturnal ponderings and fashion all those ephemeral things into something you can hold and touch.

William and I are both dreamers.

We've dreamed things that should never have been and yet they came to be.  Something that wasn't became something that was.

I think that we have achieved what we have due to a lot of different factors.  I think there is a lot of luck involved.  Luck in the traditional sense, of having good fortune.  And luck in the way that Oprah describes it as opportunity meeting preparation.  I also think it's because we work hard.  It isn't the same kind of work as being on your feet for hours serving food or mowing lawns in the hot baking sun.  (I know!  I've done both those jobs.)  It's the kind of work that requires you to bend a vision into reality... and that takes many forms.  It takes the form of all-night work sessions until your back is cramped and your fingers bleed, planning until there's stacks of papers surrounding you in scribbled-on piles, plotting, doing dull drudgery, putting stickers on bags, tubing beads, and addressing labels, and always dealing with people the way you would want to be treated.  That last thing doesn't seem like it should be hard work, but sometimes holding your tongue and just defaulting that they are good and kind and deserving of respect and compassion can be tricky, especially when their words and actions indicate otherwise.  Being a dreamer means that you have to be optimistic, persistent, and a wee bit stubborn.

But the real key to our successes as dreamers lies in the fact that there are other dreamers out there who believe in us and our abilities to make the intangible, tangible.  There are other people who have a little bit of vision and a little bit of faith and a little bit of wildness.  They have just the right ingredients, in just the right proportions, to see beyond what is and can make out what could be.  We belong to a tribe of people who believe in tenacity and the power of manifestation.  And those dreamers allow us to reach higher than what we could do on our own.

I remind myself of what it means to be a dreamer when I'm faced with challenges.  I remind myself that we are not alone.  I remind myself that the things that once seemed so impossible are now everyday.  I remind myself of the feeling of standing outside of myself, at the edge of something more, something wild and unknown and brimming with both possibility and danger.  I remind myself of taking risks and having blind faith that is unwavering when there are those that say NO and there are those who would seek to keep things just as they are.  I remind myself that dreamers are fighters and survivors and people who overcome.