hopes and dreams

Interesting - I answered a question last week about a 22 year old feeling aimless and drifting, then received an e-mail from an older woman asking for clarification on the same issue, then read an article in this month's "Body and Soul" that talked about the exact same thing. What I thought was fascinating was that the article recommended to do almost exactly what I told the reader to do in my column. What was that? Remember what you loved to do when you were a child, and how fearless and full of possibility you felt, then make a current list to draw inspiration from. I sort of do that - what I do is make a short list of little, medium, AND big things, then work on at least one from each category at the same time. So my big thing is training to walk the half marathon. It gets me up in the morning, and out to Concordia or the Y, it revs me up and is helping my butt look better (not that that's why I'm doing it, but still...). I've got my list of books I'm working my way through (I'm almost done with "Three Cups of Tea" and am ready to start "The Spectrum Diet" by Dean Ornish). I'm still researching how best to learn Italian (that's a really big one), as well as how to make crepes and the perfect pie crust (I've been working on that for at least 15 years, if anyone has any helpful hints, I'd be grateful to hear them).

I'm not feeling so scattered today, but am still feeling like there is a LOT of work to be done, combining my care of Bill AND being Steve's campaign manager, but I must say, I'm pretty good at it, and that's really teaching me a lot about myself, AND it's fun. It's ALL fun, really, just a lot. The alarm clock woke me up this morning just as I was slam dunking a basketball during an important game. I told Billy that, and he didn't quite grasp the importance of that dream. You see, I used to play basketball, so the fact that that image comes up in dreams is not surprising. For the past 10 years, however, I could never play basketball in my dreams. I would forget my shoes, or my uniform, or I'd quit the team, or I was out of shape, or I couldn't catch the ball, or run, or run in slow motion - you get the idea. So the very fact that I jumped up for a rebound, flew through the air, and slammed that ball right into the rim like an NBA player really meant something in my life. What? I'm not fully sure yet, but I'm excited to find out.

So I will use this blog to post my list of dreams today. I'll start it and add to it as I go. I think I need to remember and focus on some of those things again, as life gets real, well, life-like sometimes. So, here goes:

Susie's List of Dreams (the short AND long of it)
1. Learn Italian
2. Go to England, Spain, France, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Italy in one long 3 week trip
3. Go to Andy Weil's ranch in Arizona
4. Go to Miravel Spa (maybe study with Wyatt for the Equine Experience, too)
5. Go to Mount Shasta
6. Write my memoirs
7. Write my young adult spiritual series books
8. Be on Oprah (or if she's not around, some other similar talk show)
9. Meet Stephen Colbert (maybe give him a hug or handshake)
10.Meet Stephen King (don't ask why - I just want to, okay?)
11. Have a huge organic garden
12. Learn to can
13. Become an elected official
14. Get every second grader in North Dakota a book
15. Meet the Dali Lama
16. Do walking meditation with Thich Nat Hanh
17. Swim with a dolphin
18. Get really buff arms
19. Volunteer at Hospice again
20. Serve at Churches United for the Homeless on a regular basis

Okay - that's a longer list, but I'll keep going, I promise. It's a good start, these hopes and dreams.