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| Wednesday, August 10, 2005 |
| "The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality." |
This quote from James Michener was in my inbox when I got to work this morning. And as I woke up today with a strange feeling of what I can only describe as expectation, but with nothing specific to expect, this quote really sat me up straight. Quite a few people I know, especially in the blogosphere, are thinking about uprooting. Changing everything. This has a certain appeal to me, and I have done it before. I get what I like to call (perhaps not flatteringly) itchy feet--that urge to shake things up. I'm sure I'm not alone there. But while I have been having those feelings lately, I have pretty much determined that for my health, wealth, and well-being I need to stay put for at least another year. This does not mean, however, that I've given up my dreams.
So on this 10th day of August, in the year 2005, I've decided to record for posterity the things that I think about doing. Some are possibilities within the next couple of years, some more far-fetched, but, like Michener, I refuse to surrender them.
- Go back to school full-time and get my Masters in Editing and Publishing from Emerson College in Boston. It has to be full-time. I really respect people who are taking a class here and there at night and still plowing through and working full time. But I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't be able to focus like that.
- Go back to England. I want to take a literary tour of Great Britain and go to places that I would never have gone with my ex. I want to exorcise, if that's the right word, him from my love affair with that country which existed long before he came into my life. I plan on starting by buying this book: A Reader's Guide to Writers' Great Britain.
- Live in Boston. This one fits in with the whole Emerson College plan, but could end up being separate from it, too.
- Work in London. Oh how I would love to work for a publishing house in London. If they knew how much, and that I would work for a pittance just for the experience, I'm sure they would be knocking down my door. I wish I knew how to accomplish this one, but with working visas and the like, I wouldn't even know where to start.
- Own a used book shop. This is my dream for the future when I've done all my growing up (nope not done yet) and I've picked my spot in the world. I want the shop to be in a big old house, with the rooms divided into categories and filled with bookshelves. I will have friendly fat old purring cats which will inhabit the stacks and a dog on the braided rug near where I sit to do the books. Somehow, it won't matter whether the shop is profitable or not. I'll have regulars who come in and know that I'll have something put behind the counter that they'll love.
There are more, but those are the main ones. It's not a checklist or anything, but just something to keep me plugging away day after day, content for the moment with where I am because it's helping to get me where I want to be. |
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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