Tuesday, September 18, 2018

DEFINITION OF A DREAM


Definition of A Dream

The sleeping figure of a teenage girl sprawled across the bed with a pillow covering her head.  Her legs were tangled in a crotchet throw cover which she crocheted with her very own hands.  Her body lies still for she is at absolute peace until a booming voice disturbed that peace. 

 “Wake Up! Wake Up!  You’ve been in bed long enough.”

The voice is that of her mom’s brother who she resides with in Pacoima, California as his house guest. That teenager was me and I’d just slept for an unbelievable 17 hours straight.  

My uncle, Tandy, had come into my room to check on me to make sure I wasn’t dead.  That not being the case, he proceeded to chew me out.  He spoke a little too fast—running his words together—a little something he inherited from his father, Hosey Thomas, who’d come here from Barbados.   In no uncertain terms he let me know that in his house all able bodied souls needed to work or at least be out looking for work.   He also told me that the only thing I would find in bed was a dream.  He advised me that I would do well to get out of bed and start living instead of lying there and dreaming about life.

For the past few years I felt as if I’ve been in bed but I didn’t dream even when I was asleep.  After so many years of not dreaming I was motivated to search for the places where dreams may be found.  To get started on this journey I needed to know what dreams were.  So I pulled out a Webster’s dictionary,  one of the one’s you can no longer find in print—or readily find on the shelves in the library, to see what was the definition of a dream.  The date of the volume I found was 1971 and it read:  dream: 1) A series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep; a semblance of reality or events occurring to one asleep.  2) An experience of waking life having the characteristics of a dream as: (a) A visionary creation of the imagination.

That definition got me to thinking about my dreams and why dreaming was something I no longer was able to do.  I was no longer a visionary, I lacked creativity, and my imaginings were all dark and unhealthy. I had to find a way of bringing my waking life experiences back to life. So I searched for ways to get in touch with my emotions and thoughts and try to flip reality so to speak. As a result of my search I became more aware of my predicament and was inspired to write Where Dreams May Be Found which is not only my continued search for answers in my blog, but ialso a poem featured in my poetry book Inspirational Verse for Those Who Hunger and Thirst. 


Where Dreams May be Found 
A dream is the wish your heart makes
On the hope it will come true,
Fulfillment of that dream is the action that the body takes
To face all of the obstacles it has to go through.
Like shaking a nation free of racial prejudice,
Traveling through the hallowed halls of space
Extending the life of those who lay dying
Or to share with the world the power of God's saving grace.

Dreams are not only found in a cozy bed
On a pillow beneath a sleeping head,
You can find them in the graveyard
Buried forever among the cold and the dead.
Jesus spoke of a servant given a talent which he spitefully hid,
Unwilling to increase his master's money as his fellow servants did.
For his treachery he lost his talent to another already with ten,
To be cast into outer darkness quicker than his head could spin.

Not unlike talent, in the most inconspicuous places
Dreams may be found,
And like talent they were never intended to wind up underground.
The only thing worse than wasted talent is unrealized dreams,
Or at least that's the way it seems.
So talented soul please don't take your dreams
To the grave with you,
And miss out on the chance of being able to help make
Someone else's unrealized dreams come true.
                       
I got the idea for the book years ago when I was active in church and wanted to share my voice through poetry.  But there came a time when I had no desire to be seen or heard.  I let go of the idea for the book along with the dream of seeing my work in print, performed on the stage, or up on the silver screen. Fortunately, the toggle switch was turned back on to PLAY.  Now I am again filled with the ambition to set my inner author, poet, and screenwriter free to live the dream that God has for me. 

How did the turnaround come about?  You might ask. Well, I’ll tell you.  For starters I was encouraged by a friend who saw how unhappy I was.  Next I went back to the place where I first started having dreams in the beginning—the house where I grew up.  If you want to take the journey with me as I continue my search or you want to read more poems like Where Dreams May Be Found, look for Inspirational Verse for Those Who Hunger and Thirst.  

I hope you will be inspired to find your lost dreams.

And in parting, don’t be afraid to live the dream God has for you.






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