Of Bears and Penguins

Just enough

“Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.”
“What?”
“He lived happily ever after.” ~ Willy Wonka to Charlie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

It’s a great scene. Having broken through the great glass ceiling, they find themselves in a place completely new, with an unexpected perspective. Wonka essentially hands Charlie the world. Wonka, the unpredictable, sometimes volatile, but always generous candy maker gives Charlie the opportunity to realize not only his conscious dreams, but those that he’s too scared to admit he has, even to himself.

Langston Hughes asked about the fate of dreams deferred. My initial encounter with his poem, with its vivid and rather unpleasant imagery, left me with my nose upturned.

It was not until my senior year of high-school, when life altering decisions seemed to loom and change and mock every other week, that I saw myself in Hughes’ words.

I lay awake nights. Reciting the poem. Straining my body to hear an answer, any answer. At 17 years old, I had several dreams and sensed that I would choose to defer them all. And in the dark I would begin to sweat. Because no matter what answer I imagined they were all the same. These refused dreams issued a hot and sickeningly sweet smell that clung cloyingly to any image of life I conjured for myself. How they laughed, these dreams, a shrill, wildly mocking cry. A cry without words, only a whistling. A derisive whistling past my ears. For dreams do not give way quietly, they burn themselves upon your heart and mind; they lurk always in shadow and in light, and they are relentless in their demands. Dreams die neither peacefully nor heroically, and above all, they are never put away willingly.

As a freshman in college, I grew resigned. I tried to embrace what I felt was expected for me. I sought stability and found it in resignation to what I felt was the status quo.

And in 2003, at 19 years old, I told the status quo to shove off.

It came quietly, without fanfare or promise. At its beginning, 2003 seemed only the next step in time’s progression. And I had no expectations of it when it began, for I had not yet learned how to expect great things.

I will remember 2003 as the year in which I came into my own. The year I learned how to stand, took the first faltering steps at living abundantly. The year in which I, to quote C.S. Lewis, “became myself, only more so.”

In 2003 I walked near dreams that I had been too scared to speak of even within my heart.

I walked near presses, great beasts of machines that demand attention when they begin to place words upon paper. And I laughed, because for the first time I thought that perhaps, someday, those words would be mine.

In 2003 I tried out for a jazz band. And I won a chair in a group of musicians that are keen to play. Hot to play. A band of brothers bound together in musical freedom and expression. And I laughed, because here was a dream, whose voice had grown weak, come back to live with me.

In 2003 I found the friends whom I have sought all my life. What more can I say about them? They are the blessings that cause my cup to run over. Every day.

Last year I found myself faced once more with a choice to pursue dreams, or to put them aside, to ignore them, and live a life where always present would be the question, “what if?” What if I had chosen otherwise? What then?

2003 was not a year without challenges.

In fact it was the most challenging year I’ve ever had. There were times when it all seemed so desperately tenuous, when it seemed that no sooner was one battle faced, than another presented itself.

There were tears, and hurts. There was weariness. There were moments when I felt like I was boxing at air and shadows. But there were friends, strong and tender, who reached out patient hands and caught my tears.

I remember one conversation I had last year, when a friend looked me in the eyes, and said, “Sara, your friends want to help you in this, but we can’t help you unless you want to take that first step.” And having no other choice really, I decided to take a small, tentative stride. True to their word, my friends came to my aid. It was I who moved forward, but it was they who kept me from stepping back.

What happens to dreams deferred?

Sometimes, particularly when your friends lend a bit of their courageous spirit, and when you take a step, however small, when there is just enough hope, and just enough starlight, and just enough laughter, when there is just the right amount of love…

When all of those things are there, then sometimes, if you are fortunate, you find the dreams you tried to lose, the dreams you thought were lost.

It’s a great scene, really. When, having broken through great barriers, you find yourself in a glass elevator with a completely new perspective and a candy factory in your hands.

What happened to the person who suddenly got everything they’d always wanted?

She started to live happily ever after.