A Dream Deferred

by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?

Town Beach
Naples, Maine
4th of July, 2011

Last week I left a secure, sensible job so that I could run off and live in the Maine woods for the summer.  It was a wild and reckless thing to do, I admit.  The impulse came over me one night as I was drifting off to sleep.  I immediately jumped out of bed to call my friend in Maine to ask her if I could move into her basement for the summer, and could she please find me a job?  A week later I had quit my job in Florida (to my boss's stunned amazement), left Infinity House in the charge of very capable caretakers, made the trek up I-95 with Brother Boy the Gypsy Cat, and was now selling T-shirts and souvenirs at Gazebo Tees on the Main Street Causeway in Naples, Maine.  Today, I'm writing this under a shady tree in the Maine Woods, blissfully happy.

I'm finally living a dream I've had for most of my life.  In my dream, I live in the Maine woods during the summer months, spending most of my days by the side of a lake. I always picture myself hiking in the woods, or spread out in a hammock under a shady tree,  reading a book.  In my dream I write, sing songs, and stare out at the rain over the water, blissfully serene.  Life is slow, and the air is cool and dry. I am healthy here.  In the winters of course, I'm lazing away in my hammock at Infinity House, my tropical hideaway on a sunny Florida beach.  It really is a beautiful dream!

It has always been one of those "some day" dreams, the kind that Langston Hughes calls a dream deferred ... postponed until a later, more sensible, time.  When my father used to talk about his dreams, he'd always start by saying, "When my ship comes in ..."   Like my father, I always have very sensible reasons why I have to put off the dream until "some day."  I enjoy the dreaming of it, but the doing of it always gets deferred until some future day when other, more important, matters have been handled.

This year, when summer rolled around and thoughts of Maine once again filled my head, it suddenly occurred to me that I could, if I wanted to, go to Maine right now. This year. This week, even. Yes, I had a job, but it didn't challenge me or leave me feeling fulfilled, and it barely paid the bills.  Couldn't I get a job like that just about anywhere?  Naples, Maine is a resort town, meaning that from the 4th of July to Labor Day all the tourist places are open and will be needing summer help during the very months I wanted to be there.  Suddenly it all seemed so simple.

Once I made the firm intention to move in the direction of my dream, opportunities began opening up for me.  It always happens like that.  Today, two weeks after the decision to make it happen, here I am in Maine with a place to stay, good friends, food to eat, a reliable car, Brother Boy the Gypsy Cat, and a job that pays my bills.    I'm living my dream!

What dreams have you deferred until "some day?"  Bring them out into the light and dust them off.  Instead of making lists of all the reasons why you think they're impossible, see if you can find six ways that you can make them happen right now?  Hint:  Money is really not as big of an issue as we tell ourselves it is.  It is merely one resource.

My father's ship never did come in; he trudged through life, weighed down with responsibilities, his un-lived dreams still locked away in his heart when he died.  He didn't realize that if he had once ever decided to accept the call of adventure and set out in search of his heart's desire, his ship would have instantly appeared on the shore, ready to carry him off.  

Where will your ship take you?

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