This is the Dream.

A dear school friend of mine posted this on facebook today.  When I read it, a bell rang a high pure sound inside me.

“Found a lovely poem today on Poetry. Had to share it. Its called “This Is the Dream,” by Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin:

This is the dream we carry through the world
that something fantastic will happen
that it has to happen
that time will open by itself
that doors shall open by themselves
that the heart will find itself open
that mountain springs will jump up
that the dream will open by itself
that we one early morning will slip into a harbor
that we have never known.”

I think I’ve found my theme for The Sketchbook Project.

Today.

Today, fifteen years ago, I started a new life.

I married my best friend.

Two days ago, I sat across the table from a dear friend who served me with divorce papers.

Fifteen years ago, I was tearing up the 101, rushing to the Palmer House Bed and Breakfast, cursing as I drove, since I didn’t quite remember how to get there, following my fiance as he wove in and out of traffic, singing loudly.  We were in separate cars, so that we could drive people around over the next day or two.  Before smartphones, before GPS, I had my mental map and him.

We have definitely had a turbulent life together.  But it was a shared life, and a life I thought would get better as we grew together.  It hasn’t been easy.  Things that I thought brought us closer, in hindsight I see actually drove wedges.  He couldn’t cope, and drifted away.

Two days ago, I sat across from my friend, crying as I thought about the years until now.  Everything I had been through, we had been through.  The shared memories, the travels, the laughter, the fights.

The lost babies.

The two miracles that we have helped bring into this world.

Today is my fifteenth wedding anniversary.

And I am starting a new life.

Again.

A day for dreaming.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, by Anjali:

“It was about how white people and blackish-brownish people were separated and went to different schools and had separate water fountains and couldn’t play together. And MLK said he wanted to make the world better when he grew up. And then he did. And he had kids. And then people walked around with signs. But this one guy did not agree. Only the one guy. But everyone else did and they ignored him. And then MLK had a dream.”

Little minds. Big knowledge.