Have you ever seen those inspirational posters? Like "Soar with the eagles" or "Climb every mountain." I'm sure you have. They have a tendency to be a bit beyond reality and I haven't seen one yet that truly inspired me. I suppose they are meant to motivate or lift - they mostly tend to annoy. Over the years, I have tried to ascertain the real cause of my annoyance. And I think I just figured it out...

I have never had a flying dream. Never. I have always thought of myself as a free thinker, as someone who thinks that she can achieve anything she wants, as someone accustomed to hard work, thus that achievement is actually resultant of that hard work, not because I dreamed it or was inspired by words printed under clouds with streaming rays. Or even a poster of a kitten clinging to a branch evoking, "Hang in there, baby."

Instead of flying dreams, I tend to have dreams that could easily be construed as nightmares. They usually include tornadoes, sharks, earthquakes, branches growing out of my body, avalanches, planes crashing, and gardens - huge gardens. I am not sure what all that means..., And I suppose since, at my ripe young age, I haven't had one yet, that a flying dream probably isn't in my cards. And I can live with that.

True personal achievement doesn't arrive without work, without effort. When I recall the work, the incredible effort that my grandparents had to put into merely existing, it is exhausting to think about, let alone "do" - to live through. I wonder if they had dreams of flying or did they dream at all? 

My children have never had to crank a handle in car to get the window to go down. I have never had to stoke a fire, so that I could heat water for my bath. The parameters of work have changed over the years. Less physical in some cases and certainly more mental in others. It is part of the evolution of living, of modern living. Most nights, my brain is more tired than my feet. Do you think I can coerce it into dreaming about flying? I guess I'm not ready to give up on the possibility just yet. After all, anything is possible! Hang in there, baby. Ain't no mountain high enough to keep me from soaring with eagles.