Nick and I went to fiber fair today. We saw all types of yarn and tools for
knitting, spinning, weaving and all sorts of other things. Yarn-producing animals were there too. The llamas are so strange and mystical looking. They have eyes like you would expect to see
on a Disney character. There were lots
of sheet and goats as well as a few huge rabbits that produce angora wool.
Oh my oh my. I felt
like a kid in a candy show (so what if it’s trite, it works for me). I want it all. I want all of the beautiful yarn. I want to spin and to weave- even though I don’t know how. The colors, weights, textures and even the
smells of the various yarns were intoxicating.
There were even soaps made from sheep and goats milk.
Nick commented on how “nice” the alpacas smelled. They have a sort of sweet smell. He speculated that a farmer might actually
get to know his animals by the scent.
He might be able to tell if something is “off”, and the animal is
sick. I suspect there is some of this
although I think that it is most likely not something that the farmer is
conscious of.
I know that all of my kids smell different. Now I am just sounding like a weirdo. But it is true. I am sure on some primal level we know our child’s scent as a
survival thing.
I will always remember the first time I held Morgan after he
was born. He had this wonderful
smell. I held his head near mine and
breathed him in. I am sure he knew me
by my scent too. And then this magical
thing happened. We both started to sort
of “hum” in tune with each other.
Ok, so now, back to the subject of what I am writing
here. Dreams. As we were driving home from the fair, Nick and I spoke about
our dreams. The dream of owning a farm
where Nick builds things and I weave and knit and sew and act out all of my
creative, artists fantasies. I am
overwhelmed by how much I want to do in my life. I feel such that a huge part of me is this creative self that is
trying to jump out of my skin and do it all.
I need more time. I need to live
and be healthy for at least another hundred years. I feel that I will never, ever be done.
But, I told Nick, I feel that it is too late and I am not
realistically going to realize many of my dreams. Nick said he doesn’t feel that way at all. I am not sure what that means. Am I a pessimist and he an optimist. Or is he a dreamer and while I am more practical
and realistic. I don’t know.
Nick asked me what my dreams are. I already wrote about the some of my artistic dreams; knitting, weaving, sewing, quilting. (I haven’t even started on my passion for
photography). But the dreams that I am
pretty sure I will not realize are more on the professional level. I have wanted to be a doctor since I was 9
years old. My Uncle Ralph was an
orthopedic surgeon and the coolest guy alive.
He was handsome and kind. He had
a cabin and a boathouse and he took us fishing and water skiing. And he saved peoples lives. I wanted to be like that. Not the fishing part, but the helping people
and saving lives. I was passionate
about it.
In high school I read about women who became my heroes like
Marie Curie and Elizabeth Blackwell and Susan B Anthony. Even my own pediatrician was a woman-
unusual in the 60s.
When I started college at the University of Maryland in
1972, I signed up for an 18-credit load in pre-med courses. And I failed at most of them
miserably. I was overwhelmed. I was lost in the crowd. I went from being a star student in high
school in a very small class, to one of the masses in a huge school. There were 300 people in my lectures. There were only 55 students in my whole high
school. I was in way over my head.
On top of that, I was living out of my mom’s home for the
first time in my life, and, I was an 18-year-old newlywed. I thought I was such a grown up, but I
didn’t even know how to be a kid. The
other “girls” my age were patronizing when they found out I was married. They would ask, “Oh do you have to ask your
husband permission” for whatever we were doing. Poop, and shame on them all.
Ok, so I am not a doctor.
Several times over the years I have thought of trying again. But first I had to graduate from college,
which I did just after my 50th birthday.
My other dream/ fantasy was that, since I was a young
hippie, I would grow older as an older hippie.
I envisioned myself as a gray haired woman with long braids and wearing
worn out overalls while raising goats.
I had romanticized it so much; I figured it must at least be a
possibility. Until I tasted goat milk
for the first time. Yuck. I hate the stuff. Oh well.
So here I am, 58 years old still wondering what I want to do
when I grow up. I suspect this is not
uncommon among baby boomers.
So now I sit and dream about cleaning the house (a very Zen
thing to do by the way) and maintaining a beautiful garden and yard. Well, the cleaning thing is going pretty
well. It would be even better if I were
the only one making the house dirty.
But I share the house with a husband, son, three cats and now a puppy.
As for the garden, well, I still love the idea of a
garden. I have grown small vegetable
gardens with the kids. I love fresh
food grown by my own hand in dirt that I have dug. But wait. I hate the
bugs. I am not crazy about heat. I am allergic to poison ivy. So,
in the spring, I put a few plants in the ground and I care for them. I make sure they are watered and
fertilized. Then the days get hotter
and buggier and I surrender the garden to the elements.
So this brings me back to the question. What are my dreams? Will I ever get to accomplish them? Have I already accomplished much of what I
need to in order to be the whole person I am, or should feel I am? What else do I want to do? What will I put my efforts into doing?
Maybe I should write a bucket list. I have a bit of a bucket list that rattles
around in my head. I really want to
go back to every place we have lived overseas and when possibly, go back to the
houses we lived in and knock on the door.
I want to see and feel my presence there. Not to relive the time there as much as acknowledge that I have
been in these places and spaces. That
my hand has touched the front door, or that I have walked and breathed in these
spaces. It is a sort of time travel/
spiritual journey I want to go on.
After my mom died, I went to visit Portland, Oregon (and
Courtney who lives there). I went to
the house my family lived in when I was born.
I knocked on the door and introduced myself. Nick and Courtney were with me.
They wanted nothing to do with it and went off for a walk. I felt my mother and father in that
house. My mother looked out that
kitchen window into that back yard. She
was there. I was there though I was a
baby and I cannot remember.
I have written way more than I expected to tonight. I have probably done a bit of rambling, but
that’s a good thing. I hope that when I
read this one day in the future I will know and understand it all.
Good night moon- there’s a full moon!
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