Perhaps it's easiest to say that I don't know what my American Dream is, because it changes with me. I have been called closed minded in the past, but I dream of an America where people judge each other on their own merits and abilities and not upon arbitrary societal labels that have nothing to do with the heart of a person. I dream of a comfortable life but know that money causes more problems than it solves. I wish Americans were more literate than they are, to realize that Thoreau was not a crank living at the edge of the village but a man searching for his soul and the soul of his country. I wish that rampant consumerism wasn't the outer symbol of an inner soul, even if I do plug in my iPod and thereby at times make the world go away, a musical cone of silence.
What is my American Dream? Maybe I've already found it. I have a spouse who loves me for who I am. I have friends, people who care for each other and stand to the task at hand when needed, yet gather to laugh and live and celebrate. I have beauty, not just in nature and literacy and art, but in the stolen moments of kindness, of acts done "anonymously" as well as in the spring flower growing through the crack in the sidewalk. I have hyperbole to sling like hash. Life is ebb and flow, pain and beauty in balance. Maybe my American Dream is simply to appreciate what I have and to know that as life changes, sharing those changes with people you love makes life sweetest.
When I started this blog in May 2007, it was for the sole purpose of staying in touch with friends and family while we traveled to Europe for three months. I am still staying in touch. "Traveller's Joy" clematis vitalba: Wildflower found throughout southwest Europe/Africa. Used for medicinal purposes and found "climbing and covering" the roadsides of Europe.
We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman
1 comment:
Perhaps it's easiest to say that I don't know what my American Dream is, because it changes with me. I have been called closed minded in the past, but I dream of an America where people judge each other on their own merits and abilities and not upon arbitrary societal labels that have nothing to do with the heart of a person. I dream of a comfortable life but know that money causes more problems than it solves. I wish Americans were more literate than they are, to realize that Thoreau was not a crank living at the edge of the village but a man searching for his soul and the soul of his country. I wish that rampant consumerism wasn't the outer symbol of an inner soul, even if I do plug in my iPod and thereby at times make the world go away, a musical cone of silence.
What is my American Dream? Maybe I've already found it. I have a spouse who loves me for who I am. I have friends, people who care for each other and stand to the task at hand when needed, yet gather to laugh and live and celebrate. I have beauty, not just in nature and literacy and art, but in the stolen moments of kindness, of acts done "anonymously" as well as in the spring flower growing through the crack in the sidewalk. I have hyperbole to sling like hash. Life is ebb and flow, pain and beauty in balance. Maybe my American Dream is simply to appreciate what I have and to know that as life changes, sharing those changes with people you love makes life sweetest.
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