Follow Your Dreams

So I turned 40 on Monday. Aside from the obvious metaphysical thrashing and writhing that that day held for me, and in conjunction with recent events that just seemed to materialize in front of me, I have come to the following conclusion. This is nothing new, but worth mentioning. I just don't want people to think that I'm passing this off as my own. So here it is, in all of its cliched glory:

Follow your dreams.

It's pretty simple, really. If you care enough about something to go for it (read publishing here, but it really applies to a variety of life's big and small challenges, too), I mean really go for it, then follow it to the end. Obstacles materialize, they always do, but the dream worth voicing is the dream worth going to the mat for. As far as I can see, there's nothing more crushing than getting so close to your dream that you can see it, but, because of the obstacles that are thrown in front of you, you opt to give up. Despair is such a negative, defeating emotion. It really says that all you worked so hard for was really not worth it at all- it was too hard, too sad, too exhausting.

If it is worth voicing, it was worth following to the end.

No matter how hard it all seems, the payoff is in the achieving, and, therefore, worth the risk. A friend once said that it seemed pointless to be walking around like a corpse, undead, unfeeling. Thise people never seem to go after what they want, what they dream of, and are content to live in some gray, emotionless world. I know I don't I want to be there; I'm willing to risk. But with the risk of going after the prize comes the risk of the pain- rejection, alienation, failure (the temporary kind, of course). In the end, it's all worth it. With great dreams come great risks, and the chance for great failure...

But there's also the risk of success beyond your wildest dreams.

Follow those dreams. Don't let despair weigh you down. Fight, scratch, claw, and slam your way through. It will be worth it in the end.

Happy birthday to me.

GHI Workforce Challenge

Tonight I ran my second 5k. My time is miserable, but I did manage to squeak in under my 40 year old age quite substantially at 36:50. Ran a solitary race despite the team we had present, which actually worked out all things considered. I needed the time to be alone in my ridiculous level of suffering and huffing an puffing. Now I'm tired and sore. It will, no doubt, be fun getting out of bed tomorrow!

But I finished, and that makes two years in a row. That, for me, the self proclaimed hater of running, is victory enough.

Scattered

I just bought a house. On my own. For the first time ever. I know that I have been trying to limit the personal experiences in this blog (I do hate whiny blog entries, and some of my older ones do qualify), but this is pretty huge. So I'm buying a house and moving soon and getting on track. It's all sunny and good in my life, right?

And yet I am so scattered. My head is so fragmented with personal life issues that the immensity of the move is somewhat diminished by it all. Throw in the end of the school year, worries about sumer work, the running of a summer writers institute, a frenetic softball season that won't seem to end, and all of the other flotsam and jetsam of daily living (yeah, I still need to pay my bills), and what I have on my hands is a good old fashioned maelstrom. I mean, come on, when am I supposed to find time to write? When can I outline the next collection of stories? When can I sort out what I'm really feeling now?

It's all so hard (cue the whining). I hate it when it gets this way...I get rooted in bad habits and things I know I shouldn't do. Weird.

The brightest light I have is the idea that I can write this summer. Probably never happen, but I can dream, right? And with the dream comes the unshakable idea that when I set the words in motion my life will come somewhat back in line. I know this is true because I've seen it happen in my own life before. So, as Bill Muray said, "At least I got that going for me..."

Big hitter the Lama.

Cheers to the new house and new beginnings!

Poem About Reading A Novel

This is from Tin House as well. How cool is this poem?

"Why the Novel is Necessary but Sometimes Hard to Read"
by Marie Howe

It happens in time. Years passed until the old woman,
one snowy morning, realized she had never loved her daughter...

Or Five years later she answered the front door, and her suitor had returned
almost unrecognizable from his journeys...

But before you get to that part
you have to learn the names--you have to suffer not knowing anything about anyone

and slowly come to understand who each of them is, or who each of them
imagines themselves to be--

and then, because you are the reader, you must try to understand who you think
each of them is because of who you believe yourself to be in relation to their situation
or to your memory of one very much like it.

Oh, it happens in time, and time is hard to live through.
I can't read anything anymore, my dying brother said one afternoon
Not even letters.
Come on; Come on- he said, waving his hand in the air
What am I interested in- plot?

You come upon the person the author put there
as if you'd been pushed into a room and told to watch the dancing--
pushed into pantries, into basements, across moors, into
the great drawing room of great cities, into the small cold cabin or

to here-- beside the small running river where a boy is weeping,
and no one comes...

and you have to watch without saying anything he can hear.

One by one the readers come and watch him weeping by the running river,
and he never knows

unless he too has heard the story where a boy feels himself all alone.

This is the life you have written, the novel tells us. What happens next?

© 2008 Tin House and Marie Howe (Volume 9, Number 3)

Just such a cool poem! When life gets too much, poetry comes to the rescue. I hope that Tin House and Marie Howe are OK with me reprinting here...I did it with all of the utmost respect for a fantastic poem. Such a good poem.

William T. Volman in Tin House

This bit comes from an interview with William T. Volman in the latest issue of Tin House (one of my favorite literary magazines, for those interested).

Question: When you look at yourself, do you think of yourself as an insider, or an outsider, in terms of the worlds that you go into?

Answer: I don't really think of it that way. I think we're all...alone. And all we can do is sometimes we can be alone with others and be slightly closer, and other times we can't. And sometimes people give themselves a very convincing illusion that they're not alone. And that's wonderful too-- if you believe it.

I guess I believe it. I can't believe that we're alone. From a fiction standpoint, sure, we're the alpha and the omega, crafting a world that only we control (which is really, really cool), but from a reality standpoint, I need some connections. I need to believe that somewhere there is someone who gets me, believes in me, and wants to be with me. Otherwise, it's just status quo, and that's just not what I'm looking for.

Onward we go...