trying to hook a little dream

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Golden Possibility

I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money’s worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money’s worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I’ve had.”
–Hemmingway, The Sun Also Rises

I’m trying to buy a dream right now. I might not have enough. I might be taking too big a chance. I might be sacrificing other dreams in the pursuit of this one. But I keep seeing in my head the words written on one of Henry Darger’s amazing illustrations for his 15,145 page life’s work that Grooch and I saw at the Folk Art Museum in New York a few months back:

Your name should be Little Miss Timid.”

No, I think back to myself, Your name should be Little Miss Gutsy or Little Miss Danger or even Little Miss Dreamer but never, never Little Miss Timid.

So I’m still trying to buy this dream that might be too big and too complicated and too difficult and too expensive and too risky. And I’m hoping that I can pay enough, through some combination of all the learning I’ve done, experiences I’ve had, chances I’m willing to take, and cold, hard cash.

I really want this chance. But I’d rather it be my big fish that got away than my Moby Dick. Even if it does slip out of my hands this time, at least it’ll be another experience I can save towards future payment on some other, possibly even bigger, dream fish.

Even so, cross your fingers, say your prayers, and think a happy little thought for me. This could be just the dream for me.