The Sunshine Factor

where sunshine is a way of life

Tag Archives: dreams


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Humanizing Wednesday: The Dream and the Mud

THE DREAM AND THE MUD

One day a patch of mud on the sidewalk approached the dream that surrounded Claire.  Claire’s green eyes always sparkled, but today the sparkles were as brilliant as stars.  The dream always rested on Claire’s head, but no one could see the dream – except for the mud.  Claire could see the dream in her mind’s eye, but that was about it.

“You must tell her don’t watch the ground too closely,” the mud urged the dream.

“You mean she shouldn’t be afraid to walk in the mud?  What if she doesn’t want to ruin her shoes?”  the dream tried to clarify.

“Oh,” said the mud, “I meant, she shouldn’t focus where she walks so much that she stops moving.  She’s got to follow you – her dream!  There will always be something in her way at times – that’s normal.  But it would be a shame for her to give up on you!”

“Ah, yes, that would be terrible,” agreed the dream.  “Right now, when she’s finally following me, the future looks bright – sort of like the starlight I give her.  Back when she lost me, she was so forlorn and lost.  But now that she has found me again, the sparkles are back in her eyes.  She walks so gracefully and confidently with her head held high.  This is what she has been wishing for, for a very long time!”

“Wonderful, Dream.  I wish Claire all the best.  By the way – what is her dream?”

“To write for a magazine, but that’s all I can say for the moment,” Dream answered.

“She’ll be good at that,” Mud affirmed.  “Not even I will be able to keep her down.”

THE END


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English: Imagination (1896). Olin Warner (comp...

English: Imagination (1896). Olin Warner (completed by Herbert Adams). Bronze door at main entrance of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imagination is everything.  It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

— Albert Einstein

I agree with this one.  Without my imagination, I would not be a writer today.  My imagination fuels my dreams and aspirations, gives substance to my goals and all around is a very pleasant thing to have.

The photo I have chosen for this post is very fitting, as this person is holding a musical instrument – maybe a lyre?  It seems the Muses in Greek mythology always had music going on, too, along with their creative ideas.  🙂

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Daily Prompt: Ballerina Fireman Astronaut Movie Star

Prompt book for Handel's opera Radamisto, King...

Prompt book for Handel’s opera Radamisto, King’s Theatre, London, 1720 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Museum number: S.501-1985, Link (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The question is: what did I want to be when I was 10 years old, and what am I now?

At age 10 I wanted to be a writer
and two years later I wrote 11 pages of a book

At age 13 my writing teacher published my composition
in the city newspaper

As a kid I had seven pen pals at one time

In my college years
before personal computers came along
I wrote letters to my friends and family
in the form of a newspaper with columns

As a church secretary
I published a monthly newsletter

I continued to love words
and I read a lot of books

I journaled as an adult occasionally
but never really got into a daily habit

I started writing books in my head
and enrolled in a writing class online

After cancer disrupted my class for a year
I finished the course later

Last year I began to blog daily
and boy, has it been a fun ride!

I have a list of at least 12 books
I want to write

I am now a book reviewer
and soon to be professional proofreader

I have been in clerical work
for all of my adult life to pay the bills

but a “real” writer I am
so my dream is fulfilled daily
even though I’m not published yet


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Poetry Saturday: Perilous Punctuation

 I used to practice different forms of poetry on Saturdays.  Today I am going to use the simple style of no punctuation whatsoever.  My free form poetry tends to run this way, but I think it will be hard not to stick some punctuation in here and there.  I’ll even say:  no capital letters except for the title.  Hmm, I sense a story coming on….

PERILOUS PUNCTUATION

i had a beautiful dream this morning

where i was on a highway riding a bike

yet it was a bike that had a steering wheel

as i steered all i could see was the beautiful sky

during my favorite part of the morning

early dawn with pinks and blues and teals

i couldn’t see the road

and hoped to god that i would not crash

then i wondered what would sentences do

if they did not have punctuation

would life be an aimless adventure

like in my dream

the punctuation marks all came to my mind

and stood like a small army

they took on human characteristics

and i got to know them more fully

 

the period was a travel agent

he said you have to get done seeing one country

before you pass into another

 

the question mark raised her eyebrows

indicating her questioning nature

 

the semi colon was a pair of twins

the period and the comma wondered why

they could not be one mark or another

 

the quotation marks

were the opera singer’s arms

as she stuck them out wide with a flourish

to announce a coming high note

felt from the heart and voiced with the lips
the commas

felt like rubber duckies on a conveyer belt

the series of words or list of words they surrounded

just kept coming and coming and coming

 

the colon was a football coach

who announced the coming plays

when he did this you knew you should pay attention

 

the asterisk was a detective

first he had you read one clue

and then find him at the end

where he would give you the explanation or meaning

of what went down

 

The parentheses were a comedian

who explained things

so you could get the jokes

 

that my friend is

what i saw some punctuation marks as

if i left some out

please grace us with your vision

of the forgotten ones

and realize

the only capital letters

i had to make lower case

were my i s.

L:)

Please note:  next Saturday, August 10, Sunshine Factor will welcome a guest poet to our Poetry Saturday.  You won’t want to miss it!

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Day 6 – Antiperfectionism Series

Whose heart are you following?

It is good to dream and plan and work toward goals.   The only time to be careful of that is if you see others’ wishes for you as the end-all and be-all.  If you were born into a doctors-for-many-generations family, but you choose to head up a nonprofit group or work out in the bush, then THAT is the good thing.   Other people can tell you what to do or what to become, but it is ultimately yourself you have to live with.   I believe you can find contentment and happiness when you follow your heart.


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A Wonderful Friendship

English: The Queen of Hearts, from a 1901 edit...

English: The Queen of Hearts, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose, New York: McClure, Phillips, 1901. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My best friend (second to my husband) is moving out of state.

This news was announced to me lately

and it didn’t make it into the “good news” column.

 

This news jumped between my earlier abandonment issues,

loss, and sadness.

Hope kept trying to pop up amongst the ashes,

but this girl didn’t want to listen.

 

This will be something new that I have to recover from.

The questions pound in my head:

Who will get me like she does?

Who will understand my jokes?

Who will take time out of her busy schedule

to see movies with her favorite movie pal?

Who will provide such awesome wisdom that

I was getting used to receiving from her?

 

The answers will show up later

I don’t need to know them now

I just need to keep using email and phone calls

to stay in touch,

but Skype – no thanks.

 

She and I will survive

in this land of new challenges and dreams and blessings

But thank God,

She is alive

and I never have to forget her.

 


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Two At a Time Is Just Fine

English: Greensett Tarn Hmmm. Reminds me of a ...

English: Greensett Tarn Hmmm. Reminds me of a very well known antipodean country from here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was talking to some wise friends the other day, and I suddenly discovered how I could stop spinning my wheels.

How do I spin my wheels?  I get so enthusiastic about life, and I’m curious about so many things, that I seem to want to try everything new or different – all at once!  Not a very practical way to go, I admit.  It turns out that I get a few things done or tried and the rest are running around in my mind, waiting for me to get “organized” so I can do everything!

Hmmm, case in point of a perfectionistic mindset.  I have become less of a black-and-white thinker in the past couple years, but I still tread the path of striving to knock perfectionism out of my life.  I’m learning that “good is good enough” and “you are where you are, so start there.”  Superwoman I am not, and I no longer try to be.  Yet, (and this is because of my cancer experience) I am so afraid that I won’t achieve my goals and dreams before my life is over, that I want to do everything now.  (My cancer, incidentally, is 100% gone, and my life expectancy is as long as it was pre-cancer.  So, I’m guessing this is just another perfectionism thing rearing its ugly head.)

AND NOW – this is what I learned from my friends, and I am on Day One of living this way:

  1. Choose the one or two most important habits or goals you want to work on.  Only one or two!  You will have time for the rest!
  2. Keep on doing whatever else in your life works for you, and also concentrate on these new habits.  (Being consistent with a small amount is better than floundering at many.)
  3. After three weeks (the average time it takes for a new habit to be more ingrained), choose one or two more habits while keeping on with the new habit you’ve already adopted into your life.
  4. In three more weeks, choose another habit…

I’m wondering if a person keeps on adding new habits, when will they run out of time each day to incorporate all of them?  I’ll let you know when I find out, as my list of possibilities is very long!  Be sure to comment here if you can inform us on the subject.  Maybe some of the habits can be brought down a notch to “every other day” or “once a week” to make room and time for the new ones…that seems un-perfectionistic to me.  🙂