Nothin' but a dreamer

When I was a young aspiring opera singer, I went to singing camp.

It wasn’t really a camp, it was a summer program with a seriously reputable teaching faculty, but I get a kick out of calling it “camp.”

I’ve forgotten a lot of what I learned that year, but there’s one class I remember like it was yesterday. One class that I think about still, ten years later. The class I took with Carol Castell. 

I remember what she taught me about perfectionism. 

“Look up at that tree. Isn’t it beautiful? Do you think it would be more beautiful if we trimmed it into a perfect circle?”

I remember what she taught me about clinical depression. 

“It never leaves you completely. You’re always circling the edge of a dark pit, and you know exactly what will happen if you fall in.”

But most of all, I remember what she taught me about dreams.

I had some pretty big dreams back then. I have them now too, all kinds. Things I could learn, places I could go, stuff I could make. I’m an excellent dreamer. Execution, on the other hand, is a skill I could afford to improve on. I’m a white belt in execution. Carol was a Sensei. 

Carol didn’t teach us how to dream, she taught us how to make our dreams come true.

“If there were no obstacles, if you had all the time and money in the world, if there was nothing in the way of making your wishes come true, what would you want? What would you do?”

She had us make a list. “Write down everything that comes to mind.” We all sat in a circle on the floor and spent a good fifteen minutes dreaming about all the things we hoped to do with our lives. The things we talked about out loud and the things we kept to ourselves, tucked away in some small corner of our mind because they seemed so unlikely. 

A bunch of twenty-somethings in a room, dreaming of having careers and travelling and building homes and going on adventures. I was in my element.

“Good,” she said, breaking the silence. “Now look at your list again.” True to form, mine was a long list. Home in Paris. Career in Singing. Travel the World.“What would each of those dreams add to your life? What would it change? How do you imagine yourself feeling if you got exactly what you wanted?”

I added notes beside each of my dreams, writing down what it was about them that was so compelling. I imagined sipping coffee in my flat in Paris, sun on my face. The noise of busy city streets drifting up through my window. Feeling calm. Feeling inspired.

“Now,” she said. “Look at that list, the list of what those dreams would add to your life and ask yourself this: is there something you can do today, with what you have now, that would give you a similar feeling? Whatever it is that that dream would get you, can you get it another way, starting now?” 

It made so much sense to me. I think in business they call this a minimum viable product: The smallest, easiest, cheapest version of your product you can make that still accomplishes what you need it to.

The flat in Paris? I really was just craving time on my own to be quiet, observe, and get creative. There was definitely a cheaper way to do that. The career in singing? I wanted to perform, and a career was the only way I knew of that people did that but of course, there were plenty of other possible paths. 

Same destination, different road.

I’d love to say that I learned my lesson that day and have been living my dreams ever since. Wouldn’t that be lovely? I did learn my lesson that day, but then I forgot it. Later I learned it again, aaaaand then I forgot it. Old habits, it seems, do indeed die hard. 

I’m slowly catching on, though, and every once in a while I remember that I don’t need more time or money to make my dreams come true. When I look at them a little more closely, I tend to find that what I really want is well within my reach. 

Everything I could dream of is there waiting for me, in one form or another.

C.

PS – In times like these when we feel stuck or weighed down, it can be helpful to let yourself dream and imagine what’s possible. You may find, in the end, that you’re not as stuck as you thought.

PPS - It's my birthday today. Knowing you're out there reading this is a pretty awesome gift. Thank you for taking the time to make it all the way to the bottom.