I actually found this on the web one day. There was no author listed. The original author had some great ideas, but lacked the writing ability to bring them to fruition. So, I've decided to 'tweak' it a bit. Call it a colaboration between the unknown author and I.
One day I stopped to think about growing apples. I was munching a delicious, juicy apple and took a big bite. As a result, I felt an apple seed on my tongue. I spat it into my hand, with the intention of throwing it away. Instead, I looked at the apple seed— really looked. It was a very dark brown, almost black. Its shape reminded me of a candle flame— a little, dark brown candle flame….
I realized that I was holding an apple tree in the palm of my hand. A tiny seed with the potential to become a beautiful tree—a tree that could produce thousands of apples in its lifetime. Thousands of apples, each containing several seeds, each capable of growing a new tree which could again produce thousands of apples. Why, then, was the world not filled with apple trees?
It’s a rule of nature that only a few of these seeds grow. Most never do or are destroyed early on in their growth.
It came to my mind that it’s quite often the same with people’s dreams. Wonderful ideas come to our minds but they die too soon—we don’t tend to the little saplings, we don’t protect them as we should. Then, one day, we wonder what happened to our dreams—why did they never come true?
I put the apple seed on the table and bent to see the light reflected from this tiny wonder of nature. I wondered how many times an apple grower had to try to get a seed to germinate? How much work did it require?
Maybe it was much the same as our dreams. The seeds of your dreams don’t automatically grow. It can take time and multiple attempts; like a hundred job applications before you get that great job. You might send a manuscript out two hundreds times before it’s accepted. You might meet dozens of people before you find a true friend.
Even so, if you keep sowing the seeds of your dreams sooner or later you will succeed. Afterward, others might comment on how lucky you are to have been successful when, in fact, you probably failed more often than you want to remember. But you were good at failing—you learned, you adapted, and then with your new knowledge you tried again. And again. And again. Finally, one day, success was yours.
I picked up the apple seed once more but, instead of throwing it away, I took an empty flower pot, poured some potting soil into it and planted the tiny, flame shaped miracle. Maybe, with a little love, one day it would grow into a proud tree. I’d never know if I didn’t try.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Memorize this...
Memory is a fickle thing. It can change and morph, memories becoming entirely different with time and distance. When I was young I had a phenomenal memory. "Photographic" is what my teachers called it. All I knew was that it was easy for me to memorize my notes and that I could summon up the faces of everyone I'd ever met with ease. Subsequently, school was easy for me - the academic part anyway. The social part, well, that was a bit more perplexing.
A serious blow to the side of my head in a near-fatal car accident during my mid-twenties put a sudden end to that phenomenal memory. (Patience, patience, I'll tell you more about that in a future chapter!) In the aftermath, the memories of my childhood and early adult years are ridden with holes and empty spaces where once rich and detailed reminiscence once dwelled. Consequently, I'll muddle along as best I can in the retelling of these adventures, trying to keep the details straight and attempt to keep from confusing you, my readers, in the process.
One person I remember very well was my best-friend, Robin. Robin was a blond-haired sweetheart who I looked up to, desperately wanted to be like and very much envied. I loved her with that fierce, protective love reserved for the 'best' of best-friends. I missed her desperately when we were apart and fought with her when we were together too much. We were fairy princesses, intrepid explorers, avid Barbie-doll players and pollywog farmers together. Our imaginations led us into worlds we inhabited for short periods of time, only to return to the more mundane and drab existence of reality.
Robin and I spent many a night cuddled up together under a tent of blankets, planning our futures together. (Of course we were going to marry and live beside one another in matching houses one day. It was fate!). In those pre-homophobic days of the '60's (well, no, homophobia was alive and well, it was the openness about homosexuality in general that was absent), Robin and I held hands nearly everywhere we went. Meeting new challenges, fearful situations and exciting experiences with hands firmly grasped, each of us knowing always that the other was there beside us.
Robin was my nearly constant companion from the age of 2 until her parents divorced and she moved away at the age of 12, my first truly tragic loss in life. Though we tried to maintain our friendship by telephone, letter and occasional visits, slowly, mercilessly the years and distance built walls between us until our friendship was nothing more than a beloved memory held close in my heart. I still think of her sometimes and wish her well, praying for her happiness, and appreciate the role she played in my life.
A serious blow to the side of my head in a near-fatal car accident during my mid-twenties put a sudden end to that phenomenal memory. (Patience, patience, I'll tell you more about that in a future chapter!) In the aftermath, the memories of my childhood and early adult years are ridden with holes and empty spaces where once rich and detailed reminiscence once dwelled. Consequently, I'll muddle along as best I can in the retelling of these adventures, trying to keep the details straight and attempt to keep from confusing you, my readers, in the process.
One person I remember very well was my best-friend, Robin. Robin was a blond-haired sweetheart who I looked up to, desperately wanted to be like and very much envied. I loved her with that fierce, protective love reserved for the 'best' of best-friends. I missed her desperately when we were apart and fought with her when we were together too much. We were fairy princesses, intrepid explorers, avid Barbie-doll players and pollywog farmers together. Our imaginations led us into worlds we inhabited for short periods of time, only to return to the more mundane and drab existence of reality.
Robin and I spent many a night cuddled up together under a tent of blankets, planning our futures together. (Of course we were going to marry and live beside one another in matching houses one day. It was fate!). In those pre-homophobic days of the '60's (well, no, homophobia was alive and well, it was the openness about homosexuality in general that was absent), Robin and I held hands nearly everywhere we went. Meeting new challenges, fearful situations and exciting experiences with hands firmly grasped, each of us knowing always that the other was there beside us.
Robin was my nearly constant companion from the age of 2 until her parents divorced and she moved away at the age of 12, my first truly tragic loss in life. Though we tried to maintain our friendship by telephone, letter and occasional visits, slowly, mercilessly the years and distance built walls between us until our friendship was nothing more than a beloved memory held close in my heart. I still think of her sometimes and wish her well, praying for her happiness, and appreciate the role she played in my life.
Toddlerhood is a trial...
I was born a poor, Black child... Okay, forgive me, please! My pun-ny sense of humor just couldn't resist stealing that line from Steve Martin, cheesy as it is! The truth is that I was born a lower-middle class, White kid in a small town in Wyoming.
One of my first memories is of standing in my crib. I believe I was about 18 months old and I was supposed to be napping.My mother lay resting on the couch in the living room. She seemed to need to rest a lot back then. What I didn't know then and wouldn't learn until I was nearly an adult, was that Mom was already struggling with the Leukemia that would threaten and nearly take her life in those young years. I could see Mom through the doorway of my bedroom, her face turned into the fabric, her sides evenly rising and lowering. I remember trying very hard not to wake her as I struggled to free myself from the confines of my wooden-slatted toddler prison. Even at that age I knew better than to raise my mother's Irish temper.
Mom had apparently removed a couple of curlers from her hair and left them on the top of the dresser beside my crib. They were the old-fashioned type of curlers that so many women in the 1960's ran around with in their hair, often all day long. I remember being fascinated by this bristly, twisted-wire and plastic contraption.
Wanting desperately to reach this possible toy, I managed to lift myself onto the edge of the crib side, one leg hanging halfway over. Grunting quietly, I grasped the edge of the dresser and pulled myself forward, reaching out with one chubby toddler hand for the 'forbidden fruit'. (I am nothing if not determined. Remember that, it'll be a main element in a lot of things that happen in my future.)
Just as my fingers brushed against the stiff plastic bristles, a breeze blew in the open window behind the dresser. The two curlers began to roll. Startled, I jerked my hand away from this newly-terrifying 'creature' which had suddenly come to life. I quickly dropped back down into my crib.
Heart pounding, I lay down, closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. Even at that young age, I remember thinking that if I just went to sleep the resulting nothingness of unconsciousness would make the scary 'living' curlers, that I had apparently brought to life with my naughtiness, disappear. If only the results of all our life's trespasses and 'monsters' were so easy to banish!
One of my first memories is of standing in my crib. I believe I was about 18 months old and I was supposed to be napping.My mother lay resting on the couch in the living room. She seemed to need to rest a lot back then. What I didn't know then and wouldn't learn until I was nearly an adult, was that Mom was already struggling with the Leukemia that would threaten and nearly take her life in those young years. I could see Mom through the doorway of my bedroom, her face turned into the fabric, her sides evenly rising and lowering. I remember trying very hard not to wake her as I struggled to free myself from the confines of my wooden-slatted toddler prison. Even at that age I knew better than to raise my mother's Irish temper.
Mom had apparently removed a couple of curlers from her hair and left them on the top of the dresser beside my crib. They were the old-fashioned type of curlers that so many women in the 1960's ran around with in their hair, often all day long. I remember being fascinated by this bristly, twisted-wire and plastic contraption.
Wanting desperately to reach this possible toy, I managed to lift myself onto the edge of the crib side, one leg hanging halfway over. Grunting quietly, I grasped the edge of the dresser and pulled myself forward, reaching out with one chubby toddler hand for the 'forbidden fruit'. (I am nothing if not determined. Remember that, it'll be a main element in a lot of things that happen in my future.)
Just as my fingers brushed against the stiff plastic bristles, a breeze blew in the open window behind the dresser. The two curlers began to roll. Startled, I jerked my hand away from this newly-terrifying 'creature' which had suddenly come to life. I quickly dropped back down into my crib.
Heart pounding, I lay down, closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. Even at that young age, I remember thinking that if I just went to sleep the resulting nothingness of unconsciousness would make the scary 'living' curlers, that I had apparently brought to life with my naughtiness, disappear. If only the results of all our life's trespasses and 'monsters' were so easy to banish!
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