Dreams:

A few weeks ago I blogged about finding a blue notebook that I’d kept when I taught journaling at a women’s shelter over twenty years ago. I wrote along with the women during writing prompts.

I found this entry, titled “Dreams”

1. That I’ll get a novel published
2. Retire to house on the beach
3. That I could sing well
4. See the Grand Canyon
5. Have coffee in a café in Paris
6. Go sailing on an 18th century sail ship

Reality vs Dreams

My first novel was published about fifteen years after I wrote this list. I now have a second novel manuscript, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, that I hope to get published, so that will go on a new list.

I don’t really want a beach house. I’d much rather have a cozy cabin in the woods. We vacation on the beach every summer, sometimes in the fall and spring too, and that’s enough beach for me. For years my husband Don and I toyed with the idea of buying rental property, but it’s been more fun staying in different beach houses in different areas of the Outer Banks and Ocracoke, and then leaving!

Well, I’ll never be able to sing. I don’t understand why this was a dream of mine other than to be able to sing along to songs and not embarrass myself.

I still hope to see the Grand Canyon. That, too, will go on the next list.

I had coffee in a café in Paris – yay! – and lunches and dinners, too, when Don and I visited France in June, 2014. Among the many stunning French castles, quaint towns and wineries, we toured Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, watched the 24 Hours Le Mans race (something on Don’s list) and visited Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy.

I have been on a replica of an 18th century sail ship in San Diego. Never sailed on one, but that’s enough.

Current aspirations

Thinking about what I’d like to do in life now:

1. to live in good health for another twenty years.
2. take an American Cruise Line, maybe the “National Parks & Legendary Rivers” tour to the Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks
3. travel to Finland
4. get my second novel published
5. do more hiking
6. Creating more art, maybe take some classes
7. finish up a special poetry project I’ve been working on

What about you? It’s a helpful journaling exercise to list your aspirations or dreams, from the most mundane goals to the grandest. It’s even more interesting when you can look back on your list twenty years later!

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Thank you for visiting.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist:
Multi-finalist award winning novel In the Context of Love
Picture book Gordy and the Ghost Crab
Latest poetry chapbook: Sleepwalker
BUY BOOKS: In the Context of Love | Gordy and the Ghost Crab | Sleepwalker

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