When I was little, and when I was in my 20s, dad used to laugh at my big ideas and say “Oh, you’re such a dreamer!”… He wasn’t being cruel or discouraging, just realistic – we had no “connections”, hadn’t got much money… I didn’t have a “proper” career in my 20s… I was a self-employed designer-maker, just making an income to live off, but I had these grand notions that “One day, I will…..”. The various suggestions were:
Live in mainland Europe/ Teach A level Textiles/ Teach adults/ Create my own range of clothing for petite (5ft and under) women / Live in Paris and have an atelier/ Write a book/ Have a dog and a cat and live in the country/ Run a hotel or B&B/ Own a house in Italy…
I’m not sure, now, if I really thought it possible to achieve even half of these things. If I knew they were just pipe dreams… Or if I felt..knew…it was my destiny. Certainly, I did not see them as attainable ambitions, that I know for certain. And yet, for someone who is one of life’s great planners, who does NOT act spontaneously, gradually, almost by accident, if I’m honest, these things started to happen. I trained to be a teacher, I bought a house in Umbria… At the same time, other, more creative ambitions started to take a back seat. Even baking – which I’ve always loved – no longer featured in my career0driven life. Teaching in a boarding school is an “all or nothing” existence – at least that is my experience. I loved certain aspects of that job 0 the teaching itself – but was suffocated by the lack of creativity in my life , until the holidays, when I escaped to Italy, to my sanctuary, to recover.
Even as late as the run up to my 50th birthday, I compiled a list of 50 things I wanted to do… It was meant to be during my 50th year, but I knew I wouldn’t do them all – I just thought I’d write them down, to keep sight of my dreams… Little dreams – buy a pair of leather gloves that fit (I’ve got tiny, child-like hands!) and learn to cook risotto – and big dreams – change my career, write a teaching resources book…..
When I wrote that list, in the summer of 2014, I had no idea what the next 6 months would hold. No idea that my own illness and the death of my parents would cause a rethink of my life on such a huge scale. When I asked Mum “Have you had a good life?” as she neared the end, she smiled a beautiful smile and whispered, with such conviction, “I’ve had a wonderful life”… Her words echoed in my head for weeks. If I were to die, would I give the same answer? I’d had a poster on my classroom wall – or in a drawer if I was feeling particularly disillusioned and trapped – in every room I’d taught in “Live the life you want to have lived when you’re dying”…or words to that effect. I knew I would not be able to give that answer. I knew I had to make some fundamental changes, and I did. I still worry – Oh! How I worry! – that I was reckless, that I should have thought all of this out more instead of acting almost instinctively, as I battled through my isolating grief and the disorientating knowledge that my sole anchors were gone, even as I viewed French houses…..
And yet, here I am… I have changed my career and I live in France, I chose to give up teaching A level Textiles, I teach adults, I design and make my own clothing and have some very strong ideas for developing this, I don’t live in Paris but have a beautiful purpose-built atelier, I’m writing a blog rather than a book, I have a cat and a dog, I live in the countryside, I run a B&B, I own a house in Italy… And yet… I STILL don’t have those small leather gloves and I still can’t cook risotto – haven’t even found the time to try it out!
What sparked today’s reflection? What compelled me, today, to write of these dreams? Well, I turned the page on my “Quote a day calendar” to read the quotation below… Please don’t think, that in quoting it here I am feeling self-satisfied and successful; I am far from that. I need a bit of encouragement, to follow this crazy dream, this adventure I seem to have embarked upon, to keep going because I am most definitely not finding it easy….. T.E. Lawrence’s words offer that encouragement, and I thought it would be good to share them, for any other “day-dreamers” out there. Dream your dreams – by day and by night. Take those steps and trust yourself. You might fail, you might succeed, but when someone asks YOU when you’re dying, if you’ve had a good life, hopefully, you will be able to echo my Mum’s words: “Yes, I’ve had a wonderful life.”
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”
T.E.Lawrence