RingoIts funny how forgotten things turn up in your life again and again. Usually a book, a painting, an old toy from childhood, seems to come around when you least expect it bringing memories and perspective that tie the present to past, perhaps bending the perspective on your future. Sometimes the things themselves change as we do, more than the static objects of our youth. People and places come to mind, a friend you grew up next to that seems to bump into you every half decade. A neighborhood you cant get away from, the drama and personalities pulling you ever backward. A place of worship, whether your religion is god, food, or music, it grows as you do but not always in the same direction.
Sometimes whats forgotten is truly ephemeral. Faith perhaps. The seeds of a story you never seem to write down. Hope or Love purposelessly left in a closed box of trauma. Or perhaps they are dreams. Not the kind while you sleep nor the ones from your inattention in Mrs. Brown’s classroom. The ones that speak of your future and the life you think you’ll live.
We all have those dreams as kid that get lost as we get older, fading with time like old paint never retouched. The cliché fireman, astronaut, rock star, spring to mind as an American boy from the suburbs or perhaps dreams of a beach wedding on white horses. But what about the are more personalized esoteric ones that we do not speak on as much. The dream of sitting as knight at King Arthur’s table. The dream of being a bird and soaring free, master of the sky. The dream of finding a lost civilazation in a jungle or getting jumped in an alley and perfectly executing your self defense training. Dreams of travel, of conquest, of hidden moments of joy stolen from our favorite stories whether grandpa’s tall tales or the fiction of mass media.
Mine were simple things. I dreamed of a farm. I wanted to buy my mother a mansion. I desired to be a respected man, for whatever that meant to a child. I wanted to race the wind, on a sporty motorcycle red and slicker than blood in a Korean gore horror film. I lusted for chance to speak to people, as a teacher, as a celebrity, as a giver of sermons and life lessons. I wanted to dance and move like the stars I worshipped. Gene Kelly, Fred Estaire, Burt Lancaster, Jackie Chan, Jet Li.
I wanted to swordfight. I didn´t actually care how. I figured with the certainty of a childs ignorance, the only way to do that in a modern world, a world that had left the blade behind, was to do stunt work for movies. I dreamed of it and like so many millennials did not know that one could actually do things to make a dream a reality. This is not a condemnation of generational work ethic or instructional abilty. I just happen to know that it was a surprise to far too many of my peer group that we had options. That they included things not spelled out explicitly in the cultural narrative of school, college, job, marriage. That one can just out and pursue something. That one can just research and start working at something on thier own. That hard work does work. That hard work is not relegated to the boring fields of academic classes and 9-5 jobs. I didn’t understand chasing dreams was not just a platitude, but a prescription of how to achieve what you want.
And so that dreamed died as so many do while I stayed in my small town living a small life, unable to envision reaching for more.
And then one day, with almost no work on my own, I found a chance to fight with swords. Not just simulations, real steel weapons, swung with real intent. I learned there were ways of training to work with techniques designed to harm not just look coo. One can even work up to sharp weapon live sparring (or if crazy enough, sharps in competition). And without realizing it I had achieved the essence of the dream of youth. The specifics were not the same but in the end that didn’t matter. It was not the stunt work that I wanted, that was the means, not the ends.
I say all that to say this. The world has once again brought a dream back around and I awaken to discover the thing I thought I wanted was just another means to an end. I’ve spent the past 2 months living in a van, driving and exploring areas I would never normally see. It has reminded me that as a kid I wanted to live as a trucker, not just drive for a living but live in the cab and everything. In retrospect it was simply the nomad life I dreamed of. There was even a time when I fantasized about simply owning a pickup, sleeping in the bed, showering at gyms, and just exploring. I wanted the freedom of traveling, the ever changing scenery, the only constant the chaotic tansformation.
I had forgotten about that period of my life and its desires. The real worlds ever present demands added up on top of the continual changes and excitements of an adult’s life who is still young. Off topic but does anyone else find it weird that we call pre-teens Young Adults, not the people who it would define most naturally of any label? Back on topic, the mundanities of every day living can be distracting enough, but add in an expensive life consuming hobby and its surprising what gets left behind. Also apparently trauma affects cognitive recall and the ability to remember large sections of life surrounding traumatic incidents is often lessened. But we aren’t here to talk about that at the moment.
No I simply want to revel in the beauty that is finding a lost dream and being able to look back at my past self and tell him. Yeah buddy, we’re doing alright.
