The trouble with dreams:

As I near the end of my undergrad degree, I’m getting more questions about what I’m going to do ‘afterwards’. Aside from the basic and straightforward response – pursue an MA – it’s a hard question to answer because it suggests that it’s only now I’ve (almost) completed a degree that I’m actually able to pursue my goal of writing. Really, though, I’ve been working towards this in one way or another since I was seven years old.

But the degree adds a kind of subtle pressure. In a sense, it legitimises a long-held dream, but in another way, it reduces the dream to a mere to-do list. I suppose that’s the problem with dreams. They are intangible fantasies which only come true when they reach a tangible conclusion.

The way I’m using the word ‘dream’ and making it interchangeable with ‘fantasy’ probably sounds like I’m not a fan. Perish the thought! I’m a big fan of dreams. I think imagination is important. And I strongly suspect that many of our dreams are God-made ones, originating in the Creator’s heart and transplanted into our own.

But lately I’m realising that the tangible conclusions we dream about and work towards are always strictly measurable ones. We dream of adopting a child, or building a house, or being married, or rescuing women out of slavery, or painting a prize-winning portrait, or travelling in space, or writing a novel. We think that when we achieve those things, our dreams will have come true. We’ll be successful!

We don’t dream about the little things along that pathway, though. We never dream about filling out psychiatric evaluations, or taking an architecture class, or building ourselves into the sort of person who would make a good partner. We don’t dream of squirreling away a little bit of money here and there to send to a mercy mission, or cleaning our paintbrushes, or reading dense physics texts, or putting 500 words down on paper every day, good or bad. To us, those things aren’t success. They are the things we do while we’re waiting to be successful.

The other day, I had a nasty thought: if I die and I’ve never had a book published, will I count myself a failure? To give you an even greater insight into the lame depths of my own heart, my next thought was: will people think I’m a joke because I never achieved my dream?

Bleh. My, it’s great to be reminded how pathetically human I am. And I mean that sincerely. It was eye-opening to discover what a place of honour my self-made idea of success had been given in my heart. And not merely success for my own satisfaction – after all, small things make me pretty content. But there’s this idea that I need to be successful to prove I haven’t wasted my life, to ensure that I meet with others’ approval, and to be absolutely certain I don’t mess up what might be one of the main things I was meant to do with this four score years and ten (plus a few, I hope).

How backwards all of that is. How backwards my dreams can be! Wherever did we get the idea that One Great Dream defines who we are – defines our success?

God says that it’s the one who is faithful in little things who’ll be given opportunity to be faithful in big ones. When we pray over adoption websites, rescale blueprints, learn to cook healthy food, attend a seminar, make preliminary sketches, watch a documentary on space exploration, take a red pen to a first draft – then, we are living our dreams. The dream isn’t made real when we hold the baby in our arms, hammer the last nail, open the safe house, stand at the altar, accept the blue ribbon, get outside earth’s atmosphere for the first time, or finally see that paperback with your name on the spine. In fact, those things might never come to pass. But we can be parents, builders, advocates, faithful friends, artists, astronauts, or writers as we faithfully pursue the work that we care about, looking ahead to the final goal but never letting it be the one definition of who we are.

We can work at our dreams and work well – today. Being faithful in the little things is our worship and our success. Which, I guess, is actually the dream come true.

* * * * *

Conversations:

Laura Elizabeth -- thank you for giving me permission to obtain a little teeny piglet. BRB, pig shopping!

Lauren -- What did Arnowld Schwarzenegger say? "Owl be back!" Yes, I did just make that joke up. How can you tell?

Un -- aw, your March thing fizzled out? Start again in May with me!

A Child of Promise -- aw, glad you like them! Haha, trust you to appreciate the "teef" -- and a good reading spot. We are literary-loving kindred spirits :).

Brenda Wilkerson -- isn't it just? I kind of wish it were possible for me to adopt a baby piglet immediately.

Sarah -- the relaxing spot is indeed a great place for studying! Do you have a favourite place to sit down with books and papers for some heavy duty reading?

Dory, and the value of writer's events:

I spent today at The Word Writers Fair, sitting in on author panels and workshops and mingling with writers from as far afield as Adelaide, Sydney, and New Zealand (dedication, peoples). One of my favourite paths of writer's events is the opportunity to hear the stories of authors' paths to publication. Everything has a different story to tell, but they all leave me with the same sense of possibility and of hope -- and also the reminder that usually it's the hard work, not the raw talent, that makes the difference between lonely scribbler and published author.

It was very cool to meet two of my classmates, women who are taking the same creative writing classes, as well as two girls who reminded me just how very high-octane fourteen year-olds can be (hi, Abby and Xanthea!). Their enthusiasm was catching, and they mingled merrily with the adults at the event. I also discovered that Christian writers might just be the friendliest; I'd never before been to a writer's event where so many people boldly introduced themselves and struck up random conversations. That was pretty great.

I didn't learn any world-shaking insider tips that blew my mind -- nor did I meet a publisher who wanted to fall at my feet and worship whatever words drip from my golden pen of wonder (judge thou not my writerly fantasy) -- but I found that an entire day immersed in a discussion of words and word-making worked its old enchantment. I came home more inspired than ever before to be a Christian woman who writes fiction (and writes it well, I hope, someday) rather than a woman who writes Christian fiction. The Christian worldview doesn't need to be wedged into whatever we do. Rather, if a healthy worldview is present in the writer, it will be present in the words.

Most of all, I walked away reminded that the best writer's philosophy is something similar to that of Finding Nemo's Dory: Just keep swimming. If I keep swimming, it makes sense that -- eventually -- I'm going to get somewhere.

(Excuse me now, please. I'm going to investigate my Fair showbag and my free books. Also, did I mention there are licorice allsorts?)

* * * * *

Conversations:

Staish -- seriously. It's been two years (well, two years of study. Officially it'll be two years in April. Remember I started at a weird intake time and took that Summer semester?).

Julia -- it's the best thing, isn't it? I could probably be an eternal student with very little persuasion.

Mothercare -- well you have passed your dorkiness onto me, because I got all excited reading your comment about covering books with brown paper and decorating them with magazine pictures.

Katie -- it's always surprising -- and even a little embarrassing -- that one can come to love something previously considered dorky or boring. :)

Samantha R -- hee! It makes me grin that many of your reasons for not wanting to go to college fit in with my reasons for liking it. But yes, it's definitely hard to lock myself away from people and study.

More fabulousness in the mail.

The cheering mail continued throughout the week, with the deliciousness pictured below arriving on Wednesday and then more lovely things today (to follow in another post).

Although it seems to be the one answer no one wants to admit to, I'm pretty sure my love language is gifts. So when mail arrives to prove that someone has taken a moment of their busy life and reserved a slice of it to send something to me, I feel truly loved. And when the timing of it is so good, I feel doubly loved -- knowing the gift is not just from the friend who sent it, but from God, too, who knows what we need when we need it.

Wednesday's awesome letter came from my American friend living in Russia who posted her letter from Finland. Everything about that is super.

Enclosed in the letter were the following: a postcard of intense cuteness! (It makes me want to read Pippi Longstocking.)

Also, amazing vintage photographs of people whose stories I want to discover or invent and then tell. Incredibly inspiring.

And this fellow is saved till last because he's my favourite. I love him. I love his smile. I love his awesome cap. I love his bony hands and how proudly he's holding up the fish he's caught. I love that he's sitting in a little wooden boat in some European sea. I love the cigarette dangling nonchalantly from his lip...

... and I love the writing on the back of the postcard, completely unintelligible to me except for the date: July 1949.

Thank you so, so much, AL, for your full-of-joy-and-inspiration mail. I'm smiling real big!