Dream...

If you can imagine it you can create it. 

If you can dream it, you can become it.

Oh to be a kid again and dream your DREAMS.  I remember being a little girl and laying under a huge shady oak tree in the front yard of my Grandmother and Granddad.  The tree was enormous.  It was old and had stood the test of time.  The roots ran deep and were gnarled at the base of the trunk.  I had a special spot that I could lay on a soft mossy covered mound and lay my head.  I could look all the way up the tree spying a gray squirrel that lived there year after year.  

My Granddad called him Charlie.

I would lay as still as I could so that Charlie would not know I was there - intruding on his home.  I would watch him scurry down the tree and stuff acorns in his mouth.  He would run back up to deposit them for winter.  I could see they blue sky through the branches my view dotted with green leaves.  I would lay there for long periods of time "dreaming' of what I would become one day.  

A MOTHER.  A TEACHER.  A DOCTOR.  AN ACTRESS.  A SINGER.  AN ARTIST.  


The options were endless.  As a kid I did not think there was anything that I couldn't do.  It was not until I started to grow up and seeds of doubt were planted.


Those were the days.  Hot summer days spent running barefoot in the soft green grass.  Terrified of grasshoppers I would run with my eyes shut as fast as I could from my front yard to the neighbor's, where a little girl named Crystal lived.  We would play for hours in her room, in her basement or in her back yard.  We created make believe houses with old bed sheets tied to the chain link fence, secured at the corners with big rocks.  We took refuge from the hot sun and humid air in our "fort".  We would play with our dolls and make believe we were mommies.  


We had no DVDs, no video games, no computers, no elaborate toys to play with.  We were left with only our imaginations.  We played school and spent hours playing with a cassette tape recorder singing and making up songs.  


Our imaginations were a great gift.  One thing that my kids do not exercise often enough.  I wonder if they dream.  Do they have time in our technologically abundant world to be alone with their thoughts to think about their future?  Do they even know HOW?  
I wonder.


What kind of memories will they have of their childhood summers?  Will they remember the feeling of cool grass underfoot?  Will they remember the smell of moss covered mounds?  Will they ever know a squirrel name Charlie?  My kids have never spent enough time running free where grasshoppers dwell to be afraid of them, let alone recognize one!


One day not long ago, I tried to make them an old fashioned fort in Grandma's back yard.  It lasted all of about five minutes.  They were asking me to put a T.V. in it!  They were whining that they were hot and that the fort was BORING!  


To think that I spent hours in one and was sad when I had to take it down.  What are we doing to our next generation?  Is all this luxury really an asset?  Are Dreams a thing of the past?  


I wonder.


xoxo
Janean