To Dream

I like projects.  I like dreaming.  Actually, sometimes when I’m too busy working to dream, I feel like I start to die.  My last course was in research, and it was absolutely brutal.  All spare time was consumed by the raging monster that is the prospectus for my dissertation.  It felt like I was living in a black hole of academic nonsense.

Thankfully, I have friends.  They remind me of the little restaurant that I want to put on the balcony that overlooks Parque Central.  I am pulled out of my paralysis by ideas of documenting the lives of the shoe shine boys and helping them pay for school.  I am reminded that my research matters- that analysis can be fun when it’s used to persuade people into supporting microfinance for women in remote pueblos, that translating a book is important, because there is a story that must be told. 

I need these things.  I need fellow adventurers to pull me out and repeat my dreams back to me and drag me into new stories where there is passion and life.  To those who fit this description, thank you.  I know I can be a bear sometimes, but I want you take me by the shoulders and shake me- even as I growl.  You realign my compass, and I need that. 

May I do the same for you in return.