b ~ Beneath the music from a farther room

The thing always happens that you really believe in, and the belief in
a thing makes it happen. ~FL Wright

Funny thing. You wake up one morning and you find your dreams have
left you. Not the thoughts you had while sleeping, but the fondest
desires and secret wishes you carry around in your pocket for
safekeeping. Though you thought had a firm grip, suddenly they have
fled. You are instantly terror stricken and helium light. Imagine
holding the hands of your loved ones as you fight your way through a
crowd, you look down to see your palms open, nothing in your grasp.
How could they have left you all alone and abandoned you like that?
You did your best to claim them as your own, short of wrestling them
to the ground and sitting on them. But maybe that would have worked.
Maybe you should have tried harder, given them nametags to prove they
belonged to you. Bribed them with lollipops, made sure they would
stick around.

Dreams are fragile, delicate things. If you give them too much weight,
assign them too much importance they may leave you. Yet you cannot
achieve them without hard work, maybe there are sacrifices to be made
as well. Dreams are fickle too.

Then one morning the sun shines brightly in through the window. You
wake with a smile on your face. You can’t stop thinking about the
movie you watched last night, the butterfly room in particular. The
thought of it enchants you. Everywhere you look you imagine them now;
flying about, landing on surfaces. That could be you with a butterfly
in your hair. One on your desk, alighting softly as you turn the pages
of the book you are reading. The very idea causes a fluttering in your
stomach, like all the holidays rolled into one.

It was once Virginia Woolf’s dream and now it is yours as well: a room
of your own. Where butterflies dance and there music is of your own
making. A stringed instrument. Lessons. Time and money to make it all
possible. If you think too hard about it, if you are logical and
practical, it will vanish as quickly as it came. Logic shreds your
dreams into a million pieces and then uses them as confetti as your
biggest failures parade by. Those mistakes are always eager to come
center stage at a moment’s notice—they are strangely loyal.

Imagine it, four walls and the space inside belonging to you. The
possibility and promise that awaits, almost barely able to contain it
within.

If you stop and think for a moment, you can acknowledge that it is
still far off; there is still work to be done. If you close your eyes
you can hear a snippet of music, a tiny tune in the air, meant just
for you and you alone. Watch as the notes take to the air with the
flight of a bird or a bumblebee. If you treat this dream well and coax
it into reality, let the others see how hard you’ve worked without
strangling or crushing it under your expectations, maybe they will
come back to you.

Is it possible to resuscitate those dreams we forgot and left for
dead? What spark will catch a dying ember?  Perhaps a name in a book
shows you she does still exist. A calendar photo invites you to step
inside and reconsider. There is confirmation to be found in New Yorker
cartoons. Daily reminders of what we love most are wrapped round our
necks and worn close to our hearts. Words flow from our pencils and
pens, conjuring up images from thin air; giving them shape and space
to breathe, to come alive. Whisper these words to yourself in times of
need: soon, soon, soon.