Part 4: Where Do Dreams Go When We Are Too Busy?

I like to believe that dreams don’t die. I don’t know what they are made of, but it must be indestructible stuff, the type unfazed by the worst of the elements. Even wind gusts greater than 100 mph that down old and steady trees, entire urban canopies, blow right by them, unable to push them in straight lines. Dreams billow in the breeze.

Incessant rain on dry, shifting earth that floods every structure we try to build, is no match. Dreams float, they bob in the waves.

Fire that leaps through grassy fields leaving a flattened black footprint across the towns it stomps, only seems to propel them higher with its warmth, like sparks in an updraft, barely burning a dream’s small pinky toe. 

And yet, where do dreams go when we are too busy for them? When we push them out of our heads for all the practical, logical, rational things we need to get done. “I’ll get to you later, this is important.”

I’ve read about orphanages during war, overrun with babies who have lots to cry about. They are kept together, one caregiver to dozens, no time for much feeding and diaper changes, barely time to hold them at all. Can you imagine the crying? And yet, they don’t. They learn quickly that cries go unanswered, so they stop completely, and stare off into space or into their own not-yet-useful hands.

Is it the same with neglected dreams?

I want to hold them all, cuddle and rock, tickle and coo until I can get a gurgle, a babble, even a cry if they want to. I’ll whisper gently, “You are important! Let’s get back to it, where were we? I’ve missed you so much!”

I’ll babble like a mad mother, I may even say, “I’ll follow you.” 

Follow, of course, every meme says so. But how do I find these dreams after so many years? Where did they go?

As a child, they were everywhere. I tripped over them in my untied shoes, found them lurking in a pile of books, behind the tardy rabbit, or just past the rodents of unusual size. Inviting, twinkling like a field of fireflies, flickering everywhere you weren’t looking. They are always just barely out of sight, a little to the right.

I miss them now, when all the practical, logical and rational things don’t matter nearly as much as I had once thought. I know it won’t work in this realm and I shout it anyway, “Come back!”  

If I were thinking like NOT my adult self, maybe upside down, maybe then a dream will fall out? Where is that child’s heart, where are those untied shoes? And practical me, do dreams eat? I will lure them back like the songbirds, I will find the right sustenance for them, for me, for us.

I gently wash the feeders with warm soapy water. I buy gourmet nuts, seeds and dried fruit, high in protein and rich in crude fat to get us through the winter, to make up for lean times. I clean and refill the frozen-dry water sources.

I make time, I hum. I create space, I wish. I glance sideways, a little to the right. I wait with hope by my side and logic thrown into the gusting wind.

And I wonder, when it comes back, it must come back, will I be brave enough to follow it?