Dreams

I have reevaluated my dreams lately. For the past five years, I have had a very specific dream, one which has crashed lately. I will not realize it, and I am dealing with the aftermath of that loss. When you have a dream and you follow it, so much of everyday, so many details incidental to that dream fall to the side. The world has a rich context to it: There are people, things, resources that help you move closer to the dream, and there is a plethora of junk that just doesn't matter. Remove the dream, and your world changes vividly.
As I said, my dream is gone. The world is a strange and foreign place to me right now. I know how to move forward, to take care of my family and responsibilities, but I have lost my compass, my ability to appreciate the world around me with the passion of a man who has a purpose. I am dealing with this, almost clinically. I look around me and realize that nothing much gives me pleasure, nothing much stimulates me. I have slipped into a routine of distraction - hoping to find momentary tasks that divert me from the empty darkness that has encroached on my periphery. Maybe I have finally reached my "quiet life of desperation" Thoreau talked about. I have always been slow anyway. I do know that I don't want this particular song to follow me to my grave.
The picture above is from a small public school on Zanzibar called Kiswanduli. I spent a day there last October. This class is their special needs class, and we had a very fun hour counting to ten in Swahili - moja, mbili, tatu, ne, tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa, kumi. Each time we finished the sequence, the young woman in the bottom of the frame with her back to the camera flashed the most beautiful, joyous smile I had ever seen. She and the other students were so pleased to be with me, having so much fun in a classroom. It was an hour that I wished could be a decade. Later in the afternoon, I spent a few hours with some blind students who taught me how to punch Braille in cards. They were very, very patient with me. I also made a presentation to a group of teachers who were enthusiastic and responsive. I finished the day by walking through the Old Stone Town to a mosque where I prayed. I stopped on the waterfront to have some fresh barbecued fish and vegetables. I was on a small island with people who shared my faith, my convictions, and accepted me openly for who I was. I am working on a new dream.