I have had dreams of doing any number of things all my life. Either I or others were quick to label them "pipe" dreams. "Pipe" as in foolish, impractical, ridiculous? A lot of people my age have come to realize that dreams are not the stuff of foolishness. The other day I got an email from a neighbor/friend from my old town who'd discovered my blog. She told me she had started a new "cottage" business of selling greeting cards with her amazing photos on them. Here's her site because you all really should check out these very original cards - www.jgfischel.com It was a reminder to me that no matter our age, young, middle, older, oldest, we have the opportunity to dream new dreams, or capture old dreams and actualize them. We can stop identifying them as "pipe" dreams. I think many of us have spent a good portion of our adult lives on being practical, cautious, and maybe feeling a little scared or a lot scared. Many of us stifled our cre...
Well, you know the rest. I have to confess for a long time I really tried to get rid of The Bronx. For a long time after that I thought I had. And for a long time I felt good about it. I'd escaped. No one could tell by my speech, my look, my style, etc. I used to love to hear, "You're from The Bronx? I'd never have guessed." And it's more than that. It's escaping a past that didn't fit in with my fantasy of who I wanted to become, who I wanted to be. It was an escape from a certain social class, an escape from parents whose customs, manners, interests felt alien to me - or maybe the truth was I wanted them to feel alien to me. I wanted to be my own creation! But deep down I knew the truth. I knew it and it bothered me. I felt like there was really no escape. Not from The Bronx. Not from the lower income class that shaped me. Not from a mother who loved a bargain more than almost anything. And it bothered me. But lately something has changed. It...