I thought i had mastered the art of diving headlong in to my dreams. When i was in high school, a stage i laugh at my friends for reminiscing over, i believed that i was "diving headlong" in to film and theater. I spent my summers writing epics that bled beyond the four corners of my computer screen, seeping like ink in to the blackness of my mind. Sure, most of them were, at second glance, nothing but exercises...my own Kitty Hawk days if you will, but i believed firmly that i was paving the first few steps on a path that would one day lead me to a Marquee with my name emblazoned in flashing lights, heralding the release of yet another blockbuster. My school days were spent in acting classes, playing lead roles in the plays and touring with the drama troupe.
I got to college and started taking film classes, surrounding myself with the other film nerds and theater gurus...and in the blink of an eye i walked away.
I picked up a guitar, "dove headlong" and now am left gasping on the shore, shipwrecked again by my own overzealous navigation.
I wonder if our dreams are to be trusted. These ships we set sail on, giant crafts of hopes, ideas, ignorance and just a touch of soul, seem unreliable at even the best of times. I have felt the urge, again and again, to cast off any anchor rope i might hold in reserve and tighten my sheets to catch the strongest of breezes, only to be lead again and again in to the gaping maw of the maelstrom.
Ok, dangit, i'm waxing dramatic again and that was not entirely my intent. I'm not trying to say that my dreams and the places they have shipwrecked me are members in my chorusline of regret, or even that i wish to simply walk away from them...truth is, i'm starting to see that Robinson Caruso only became the legend after his ship went down and he had to survive with the sweat of his brow and the strength of his back.
I know this all comes from left field (and with me, that is WAAAAYYYY left, like MARS left field) but i do have a point, or if i don't you might at least see this as my contented SOS. I dreamt, made a heading and capsized. I had to change my plans. I had to find a new way to move, think and even speak.
But I like this island. I like the way the sun burns my eyes. I like the way the native's cannibal fires illuminate the night sky. I like the scars the coral reef gave me on the way in. It's proof of the journey, and at the end of the day that's all that counts.
In the words of Edward Kennedy, "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."
Just cause things don't work out the first time around, or even the second or third or fifteenth doesn't mean you should stop building that damn palm tree raft and pushing out in to the crushing surf.
do it. do it.
