Thought for Today: Where is your DREAM?

What was your dream?

Not the question of who would be when you grew up, but what you dreamed for.

Was it a dream of Fame? Fortune? Power? Love?

Fame? Not the Brittney Spears or Keith Moon (who?) fame, well maybe, but to "a name", remembered in the career path you choose.

Fame, that fleeting moment to aspire for.

Your name on every one's lips. Your picture on every magazine cover. Your request for interviews on every talk show.

Much of fame, we realize as we get older, is our idols are manufactured by profit making companies who will toss you aside when the next good looking boy or girl comes along.

Few achieve real fame and it weights them for the rest of their lives.

Fame might bring power, love, fortune, but does it bring happiness?

The famous get stars on the sidewalk people step on. The famous might get monuments or plaques.

What about dreaming of fortune? With a pile of money you can become famous and buy most everything else.

Fortune can be wealth of worldly possessions.

"Stuff" to impress the not so fortunate. But what happens to all this "stuff" or wealth when you go? And did it really impress?

And fortune makes friends out of enemies or other evil doers who want to share in the good times without having to earn it.

Power? Power over people or animals? Power over thoughts? Power by teaching or Power by threatening.

How long will the Power last before it shifts? Power must be maintained, but it is always at odds with truth, justice, and ingenuity.

Power surrounds itself with fear and needs to replenish itself.

The dream of love? True love? That one and only. The vision embodying all the features of a true companion.

Lust or love?

The emotion which can bring the strongest to blubber, the truest to lie, the heart to beat faster and the blood pressure spike.

Reevaluate your earliest dreams and check them against reality.

Are you living your dream?

The Carriage House

During my high school and college years, I was selected to run a small gathering place presented by the First Baptist Church. Across the street from the church, in a small one room wooden paneled old garage, the place was called the "Carriage House".

The youth minister of the church asked me if I would open and close the coffee and chip conversation room with discussion of life, God, music. Every Saturday I would open the door, start the coffee, put out the chips, select music and set up tables with checkered table cloths and candles.

Friends would come and they would bring friends. Some troubled teens. Some kids trying to find answers.

The music would inspire questions and often heated debates of the government, war, sex, drugs....

We'd pull out guitars and play folk music, songs of protest, songs of love, songs to sing along with.

We watched the first man on the moon. We played checkers.

Some night were full of coffee and tea drinking teens reading, talking, laughing.

The kitchen was a stir with each cup of coffee covered with whip cream, each Earl Grey or Constant Comment tea cup, each basket of chips or pretzels prepared and served with a smile.

As the years went on, the folk atmosphere turned to revolution rock. The crowd thinned out.

I closed the door and turned in my keys to the church.

The next attempt went to a basement room with day-glo color walls, loud rock music, smoking, and without the church's awareness drugs and stealing.

A good idea that could not last the years.

Those Darn Boys

Even though it was a wedding on a field of green in a traditional university, these young lads decided to make it a special occasion.

A good time was had by all -

Changing Seasons

The wind blows.

There is still no leaves on the branches, but the air is different.

Chimes ring with the seasons change.

Animals know.

Clouds blow fast against the black sky.

Mother Earth teaches the common human how weather adapts to the rotation in the universe.

The seasons are about to change.

Again and again as it has done year after year.

Excitement, wonder, foreboding

Stop and enjoy the change.

An Early Spring Sunday

Sunday Morning as always with coffee and critters. A brief view of Yosemite in the winter waterfall while the bamboo outside the window glowed in sunshine. Then strap on the jeans and walk outside into the sunshine. Aw, breathe the air. Fresh and warm.

Pause by the pond which is thawing from the cold. Listen to the rustle of the trees as I shift bikes for the morning ride. Again pause and absorb the sunshine. It is much needed.

Stop at the street and face the sky. Clear blue. No clouds. Just sunshine.

Off the formidable path. It has been some time since I had ridden, so this would be a new adventure.

Adjust the fingerless gloves and turn the baseball cap that signs Virginia Commonwealth University in gold on black backwards to avoid the wind. Deep breath and push on.

Early joggers and walkers are out in the warm day, pasty white and pale in the first coming from the cold. But they are out and at a slow pace, such as I, starting to enjoy the new year.

The hills seem taller and harder to climb, but that is why they created gears on the bike. I shift down.

Past "Stuffys" sandwich shop on Libbie. I'll be back here again before the day is over with lunch for me and the dog.

Turn toward downtown and start to feel the heat. Maybe I should stop and go home and remove the grey sweatshirt. No, press on.

Dug the tree branches and stop at the street where you grew up. Take a breathe and pause for the light. Big black SUV turns to the right in front of you just for the smell of the exhaust. thanks.

Down the familiar. Over the bridge and into stride. The movement feels better now.

Up into the fan and over the mounds of black tar filling in holes to maintain pipes of gas and water supplying houses for over 100 years. Tiny mountains proclaiming the infrastructure is decaying.

Turn the corner and back again.

Trees empty branches cast shadows across my eyes like a blinding strobe light. Press on.

The road familiar yet ever changing. New faces, new experiences.

Turn pass the hospital where a friend took his last breath, and past the museum. I got to go there more often. The paintings and art used to inspire me, but now it is magazines and visuals on the computer. Must get back to pencil on paper. It is what I know.

Wait for the line of church goers to pass before I continue the trek.

Should I go up the hill or go around it? The path is easy to move to the right and go around.

NO! Continue up the hill. It may be difficult, but that is what this trek is for. Since it is early spring and I have not ridden in a few weeks, I downshift. It hurts my soul but saves my heart. I make it to the top and continue pass the Greek church and down hill from here.

More runners and walkers. Still pale. But enjoying the first warmth of the new season.

Swing back to the alley and the sounds of pups begging for treats, motorcycles, and birds.

A good day over all.

Movies

Movies, that dark seat in a large auditorium with other people in the quiet watching the light flicker on a spread screen behind separating velvet curtains. Larger than life.

Yet these images and acting and stories related to me and changed my view of the world.



The Last Picture Show

A story about a small town in Texas but with a teen twist. I knew kids from small towns who felt and talked like this movie. They just wanted to come to the big city, like Richmond.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

When I saw this movie I could not believe the language or the situations that were presented. There may have been some family resemblance, but I don't remember.
The sound of ice hitting the glass stroke a note?

Blow Up

An artist black and white movie about a photographer who catches a murder but can not prove it. Mystery of the mind. Great ending.
And hot teenies. Memorable. And it started the viewing codes.

Marat/ Sade

Existentialism. Interesting movie with philosophic discussions, but what got me was the rape of the nun in the end. That can't be done!

The Killing of Sister George

Freedom for women, but with a twist. The first lesbian movie that shocked this small town.

Koyaanisoatsi

Philip Glass drone music with fast and slow movie photography. Music caught my ear and imagination.


Ned Kelly
When a Rock and Roll hero want to be actors, it is usually deadly. Mick did a fairly good job on this and the remake is no better. "Such is life" is a memorble quote from a man who is about to be hung.

Easy Rider
When I left this movie, I was scared. This could happen. It felt familiar.

200 Motels

Frank, you genius. Making a movie with video and all the effects available even then. The music holds the disjointed together. Orchestra, the vaudeville band, and Jimmy Carl Black. Interesting even today.

Zachariah

Rock and Roll cowboy movie that was impressive enough a friend of mine named his first son after it.

Beware boys and girls, you may find one of these in your mail.
Enjoy it and pass it on.

Existentialism

Man is totally free and entirely responsible for what he makes of himself. It is this freedom and responsibility that is the source of man's dread

Most philosophy dealings are with man's relationship with God.

But the philosophy of existentialism deals with man taking responsibility for his own actions, reactions, and consequences not excusing mistakes or accepting grace from a "better" being.

You are what you is

Tighten up your belt and be what you are.

No one else is to blame.

No one else accepts the compliments.

This is what will be written on your gravestone.