How you gonna have a dream...

Where would we be without our dreams?

A friend of mine sent me this picture as a reminder that shadows aren't always murky places and in many ways it is where are dreams come from.

Where would I be without my dreams?

Oh, I’m not talking about those dreams that I have most nights. The ones where I’m lost in a strange city with no money and I’ve lost my laptop, or the one where I’m locked out of my room in a big hotel and I suddenly realise that I’m completely naked. I’m not even talking about the one where I’m lost on Mars with a thirsty creature stalking me for my moisture. No, I’m talking about the dreams that I had when I still believed that all of my dreams would come true.

My dream as a boy was to become a successful artist. I was going to say famous but fame equates to celebrity these days and at no time did I ever want to be a celebrity.

Of course I didn’t become famous, and whilst I doodle and sometimes attempt something a bit more ambitious my conscience won’t allow me to describe myself as an artist. Well, not in the way I dreamt of being an artist with a garret high above the smoking chimneys of Paris, my brilliant canvasses stacked ten deep against the wall, smoking a Gauloise as I paint a voluptuous reclining nude, twiddling my beret for luck, splashing paint here, chucking paint there...

I think that there may even have been a time in my very early teens when I dreamt of being a film star, I guess everyone does. But by the time I’d grown there wasn’t much call for trench-coated gumshoes in a black and white world and besides with my looks I was more suited to playing the villain. Sadly I never did get a part in any of the school plays, only the very pretty and wealthy ever did at my school, so my acting dreams were dissipated even before I had a chance to dream them let alone make them a reality.

My dreams were never big despite what my dad said, and I never did get that beach buggy or illustrate a children’s book. Perhaps that was the problem - perhaps my dreams just weren’t big enough.

It all seems an awful long time ago now but some of my dreams did come true. Not the ones I’ve mentioned, but other dreams collected along the way. And of course I’ve had my share of dashed dreams and it never fails to surprise me how quickly a dream once attained can so easily becomes the norm and boring. Worse still is how some dreams become the stuff of nightmares with use and wear and experience.

I still have dreams though and I still chase them, albeit a little more slowly than I might once have, and I still hope that some of them come true.

So, where would I be without my dreams? Perhaps if I’d never dreamed I’d have become an accountant in a steady job and solid investments, or maybe I’d have joined the navy and seen the world, perhaps I might even have become the blacksmith I dream of being now. A life of honest toil and order, a quiet life without the need for dreams.