Yesterday I found a list that I've made approximately fifteen years ago. A list with a big title: DREAMS OF MY LIFE.
I made that list as a young adult putting down all the things I wished to learn and do during my life as I looked at it then... and funny thing was that as years later I found it again, I could mark off several dreams as "done it!"
As reading the list yesterday I could mark off another: piano lessons. Those I started last fall and that is an ongoing dream to become a fluent player. It's interesting that for years I have wanted to take pianolessons but for some reason I have not got myself to that place. I know I had excuses but at the same even this sounds a bit silly, I think I wasn't ready.
When I finally made that step and got me a piano-teacher and took the book of Aaron for piano I found marks in it that the last time I've had lessons was at age 10. I had always thought it was something like age 6 or 7. I don't remember my piano teacher, I only hold the memory of having learned something wrong... And I suppose I let that thought be so large in my head even I haven't thought of it so much that I never got started...as thinking well, maybe I can't learn... For years I've been a good listener of other players, secretly hoping one day I could enjoy the art of playing myself.
Now that I'm learning with the help of an awesome teacher, an old man who has played for over 50 years and continues to play every single day apart from times when he's travelling, I've discovered something else: I CAN learn and do learn, even so far I'm in the level of children's songs. :-) I'm progressing, defenitely.
Before getting started with the piano lessons, I also started singing-lessons in pop-jazz style last fall. Quite spontanously! I have always loved singing and been in music class for six years but I've always been rather reserved to sing to others. Insecure. I took voice-lessons years ago when I lived in France and have sung in the choir quite a few years too. Slowly, during last year, something grew more eager within me to sing more... One time I found myself at a birthday party and felt an inner push to sing a song and at the very end I had the courage to do it (I felt I could not go home if I didn't) and I guess that was a big step for me, for the next day I found myself looking for occasion to sing more. To just let myself enjoy with others what I enjoy to do: to sing. So I have, once a week had this class with two other women, teacher accompanying us with the piano we sing together and on our own. And again I've found: I CAN learn. I'm progressing, defenitely.And most of all, I can let myself enjoy what I enjoy. I'm not expecting to be a great pianist or singer but to fulfill myself in the art that's in my heart.
These are dreams coming true for me. And as dreams are, they are also a gift: to be able to do what we yearn to do because in doing so we discover something new of ourselves, completing us. We can find ourselves like a growing flower making its way from the frozen earth towards the light and warmth of spring and summer. When we plant a seed in the ground and water it, we tend to believe something is gonna grow out from there, right?! A sunflower or a strawberry for example! :-)
- Why don't we see the seeds that are as gifts inside us and believe in the growth that can take place in us? Learning a language or to play an instrument? To garden? To learn new recipes and enjoy cooking? What is it in you? Through learning to love ourselves we water those seeds and grow to new inner lengths.
I believe all of us have gifts to be discovered. Gifts that make us who we really are. Often these gifts are hidden in our dreams and that is yet a greater gift when we realise it. What do you dream of ? How could you make the path there? I suggest: start by making a list of those dreams and slowly an inner path leads you towards those dreams; in seeing and finding ways of making it real.
Something happened recently that I want to write down, because it feels much like a dream.
A couple weeks ago I was out with some friends. Around two in the morning I was on the street calling the taxi to take me home. The street where I was had a building with - I assumed offices and a restaurant downstairs that was closed. It was all quiet, with only some cars passing and I felt like singing...and I sang as I thought it would not disturb anyone... After a while a door opened and a man came out asking me "Is it you singing here so beautifully? I came out just for that... would you sing for me?"
You can imagine I was taken by surprise.... But I discovered I had only little hesitation in me with such an invitation but did tell him I'm waiting for the taxi however... and so I started and sang again the song Bridge over troubled water by Simon & Garfunkel. He sat down with his shoelaces untied and listened. In the last verse he sang along a couple lines. From the first look I saw he was a rather sad man. All I did was to sing, because when the last verse came to its end the taxi arrived and I stopped singing. Before getting in the taxi I went to shake hands with the man and wished him all the best in life. And that moment disappeared only to remain in the book of my memories as long as I hold memory.
Unkowingly, he gave me a gift that I probably haven't still been able to completely unravel.... I hope to believe he also received something. It made me realise again that we don't always have to know people in order to connect with them in some way. As humans we are more alike than we realise.
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER by Simon And Garfunkel
When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
********************************
It is now Easter friday, actually, as I've been completing this text I started already a few days ago.
The scene from the window is not the kind I would like: it's snowing AGAIN. I'm so much looking forward to spring. But I know it's coming just as I know YOU and I hold dreams to come true for us, in us. Dreams that are gifts for ourselves and others. Dreams that create us to be more of who we really are.
Happy Easter!
With nothing less than my heart,
Rina
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