Getting Up

Hope is a waking dream.

Aristotle
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Hello Barbara
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Wake up. Yawn. Stretch. Get out of that bed. Stand up. Wash your face. Brush your teeth. Make your coffee. Eat your breakfast. Get dressed. Open the door.

Wait a minute, you forgot something. Where;s that dream you were having? It's still back in the bed. Well, that's probably a good place for it. It was an improbable dream anyway. And maybe there were things about it you didn't like. So leave it there.

It's another day, a chance to make a mole hill out of that mountain you left yesterday, a chance to make one more step towards the plans you made last week, a chance to check up on the things you planted in your life last month, a chance to observe and appreciate how much you've grown in the last year as an indication of how much you are going to grow this year. If you don't have things to look forward to you might make the mistake of looking back.

So you've your plans, your ideas, your desires all tucked neatly (or maybe not so neatly) into your agenda, each with its own color. These are the hopes that got you out of bed this morning and every morning whether you know it or not. Each one has its demands on you, demands which you gave them. And those demands involve dreaming up the thing and dreaming up the way to do the thing. It's time. It's also time, armed with desire, courage and hope, to do battle with the bad dream of worry, the nightmare of failure.

What you do is to start at the end, visualizing exactly what you plan to do or be and where. Then holding that dream in mind at all times you go back to the beginning or where you left off, take the next step, take advantage of the things that occur as a result of that step and the previous steps and then accept and rejoice over your accomplishments. Don't be surprised when unexpected benefits arise, for as Shakespeare said "the mightiest space in nature fortune brings to join like likes, and kiss like native things."

Designs are made for unique constructions. Tools get invented to do things there are no tools for. Surfaces are prepared to launch great ideas. Hope becomes gratitude in advance as the dream slowly becomes a reality and life is better.

Then on to the next one. There is always another day to dream.

Dana - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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Brushed Off Strokes

I am a poor student sitting at the feet of giants, yearning for their wisdom and begging for lessons that might one day make me a complete artist, so that if all goes well, I may one day sit beside them.

Rod Taylor
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Hello Cotonou, Benin. Have a peaceful day.
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There can be great sadness in missed opportunities. We can regret those things that were almost in our hands but somehow slipped away, those things that we hoped for and expected one day we would achieve and those things that we carry with us as dreams, only to realize one day the dreams will never become realities.

When I was at the Art Students League in New York City I took life drawing classes from three excellent teachers and a course in anatomy for artists with a fourth. One day one of my teachers encouraged me to start painting. I have been painting since but I never got to study painting with a teacher.

My enthusiasm for art was slow in coming, I was in my 40's before I ever began to draw. The League offered courses in illustration, realistic and abstract painting, water color and murals. It taught graphic arts, etching, engraving, lithography, wood cutting and linoleum cutting. There were classes in sculpture: wood, stone and clay sculpture.

I was so hungry for it I wanted to learn all of it. There were inspiring teachers there, some of them famous artists. I was looking forward, even in my advanced years, to sit at their feet and get their wisdom. But, unfotunately my career as an actor interfered. That wouldn't have been so bad except that it took me out of town for many months, and since it was the way I made a living and enabled me to pay for the art classes, I needed to go. When I was back in New York I was looking for work and didn't have the money to pay for any classes.

Years later I went back to the League and took some drawing classes, but it wasn't the same and I soon saw that the hopes of really learning about all the possibilities of artistic expression that had been available to me as a student were going to be lost.

Now I still yearn for that knowledge but there is no access to it other than books and magazines which I pour over. I don't even know if I would have ever become as great an artist as those I admired. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to know what they knew.

That I was never able to fully follow that desire is one of the sadnesses of my days.

Moral: Follow your dreams, even if you have to go slowly.

DB - The Vagabond
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This Week's Contest

This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.

You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:

Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)

Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.

Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

4 answers so far

I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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Like A Swan

If we don't go through the dreaming process, nothing will move us toward our goal or our vision.

Werner Berger
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I was the ugly duckling in my family. I don't mean to suggest the others only waddled and quacked all the time. They were just not dreamers as I was. I got a lot of criticism from certain of my folks because they would find me sitting somewhere staring into space. One of the ironic problems connected with having a mind that dreams up things, mentally fashions them and devises ways to begin making them happen is that no one can see that mind working. The people in my family were doers, not dreamers. They would jump into things and figure out how to do them later. They always wanted me to be up and doing something or looking like I was doing something before I had a chance to think through anything.

Thank heaven for the arts. When I grew up, became a swan and got into the performing arts there was no question about doing something. An actor is one who does something. But in the case of theatre the something done is worked out artistically, and that means through invention and imagination. At those times the mind has to wander through the bits and pieces of the actors work unaided by any waddling and quacking.

Certainly art is not the only enterprise that needs a period of good solid imagining. The danger is that sometimes when we catch ourselves dreaming we think we're doing wrong and should stop it, slap ourselves in the face and get quacking. Concentration on the tasks at hand is vital, of course. But when dreaming time comes there is nothing wrong about following the dreaming wherever it goes. There are discoveries in dreams, and the best ones are those that give us visions for the future and goals
to work for when the waddling and quacking time comes.

Those good dreams stay with us and recur. We improve on them and eventually, if we don't shut them off, they lead us into doing and having the something we dream of.

When the time and circumstance allow it's more than just a pleasant rest to let our minds meander swan like through the universe of thought. It is a joyously productive thing to do.

DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend Puzzle answer - Sunday Puzzle to follow

2 correct answers both from the Blogspot Tigers
To Just Plain Bill goes the grand prize of a genuine cellophane fan.
Second place goes to Val


"You want ice with that?"

SD'GD WRAKOH R WDRZ SRAD,
R ZGVBKXRU WDRZ SRAD,
ZWD ZDEBDGRZQGD'C GKCKOH
KZ KCO'Z CQGBGKCKOH,
CWD XDGZRKOUP XRO XRO-XRO.

KGAKOH IDGUKO

We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The temperature's rising,
It isn't surprising,
She certainly can can-can.

Irving Berlin

Thank you
DB

Now here's the Sunday Puzzle
1 correct answer so far


SUNDAY PUZZLE

One of these things is not like the other.
Which one and why?

1. baseball, soccer ball, football, tennis ball.

OK, that was the easy one, Now they get tricky.

2. grizzly koala black polar
3. flute violin banjo harp
4. Washington Adams Franklin Jefferson
5. palm tomato peach zucchini
6. 2 4 6 8
7. New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York
8. tennis badminton ping pong volley ball
9. Champlain Erie Michigan Superior

Good luck
DB

Do It

Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.

Friedrich Schiller
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The other day I was watching the NASA TV channel and they were showing the induction of 4 new members into the Astronauts Hall Of Fame. One of them was Guy Bluford, the first African/American astronaut to travel into space. In Mr. Bluford's acceptance speech he gave a brief autobiography which went through his boyhood into his education and finally his career as an astronaut. Several times in his speech he used the phrase "chase the dream." He mentioned the problems he had to overcome but he also mentioned the people who encouraged him, from his family, his teachers and colleagues. All along the way he "chased the dream."

Growing up I never really understood what the "norm" was, but whenever I did, said or wanted something that wasn't the norm I got scorn and discouragement.

As a youngster I was very interested in outer space. I knew as much as I could about the solar system, I knew about the planets and their moons. I have written often about my elementary school science teacher who scornfully told me that man could never go to the moon or even travel out of the earth's atmosphere. He was the authority figure so I accepted that for a while. I might have been encouraged to study science and engineering and, who knows, to be one of the early astronauts. But I wasn't. I tried to write a story about space travel. My brother found it, showed to my sister and they both laughed at me.

I'm still interested in science. I have books on the various subjects and I enjoy reading them. One day I was reading a book on mathematics when another actor walked passed and laughed at me. He thought I was faking it to make a good impression.

I wanted to be a composer of great music. One day I was describing my reaction to a piece of music for mother and she said she always thought there was something not quite right about me. I wasn't normal. When I got to junior high school there was musical training available. I was told that I had to pick an instrument to play, so I chose the violin, violinists get to play everything. I spent a lot of years and money trying to learn the violin, but I had no ability at it. Years later I found out that I could probably have been an good clarinetist or other wind player, if I had had the chance to try it. I learned to play a tenor recorder in 15 minutes. I used to have one but it got lost in one of my vagabond moves. I hope whoever has it is making music.

So I went into show business. That seemed to be the norm since both my mother and grandmother had been actresses. My mother used to proclaim that she wanted to see my name up in lights on Broadway, but she never did a thing to help. In fact the few times she saw me perform she told me why it was no good. My brother started out as an actor but soon quit and went into advertising where he produced TV commercials. He could have hired me to do a commercial very easily, he never did. My sister started out as a singer, but quit to become a nurse. They both discouraged me from trying to make a life as an actor.

I could mention many other times and ways in which people tried to discourage me out of whatever dream I had. But the point of this entry is to say if you have young people in your life give them the freedom, the endorsement and the reassurance to persue their positive goals and if you are a young person reading this at whatever age you are "chase the dream."

DB - The Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

4 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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Bits And Pieces

Be open to your dreams, people. Embrace that distant shore.

David Assael
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When I woke this morning I looked around my apartment and said "What a mess!" The vacuum cleaner is still in the middle of the floor, there are papers on my desk I've forgotten about, checks have to be written, the kitchen range needs cleaning, there's laundry on the floor, an unfinished painting, an unfinished story. I managed to take the trash out yesterday (GOOD!) except for the small bag I forgot about. As I have often said and written "Life is unfinished business."

Pitifully, some people never roll up their mental sleeves and take on the task of understanding themselves. It's the most difficult of all obligations we have, and when shirked empties one's life of all inherent possibilities for happiness.

So why do I live in chaos? Because the accumulated bits and pieces of the unfinished business are all pointing in the same direction. But there doesn't seem to be a single path for getting there. The more complicated life becomes the more difficult it is to define the simple overall goal of it. I have said that the main purpose of life is to stay alive. But that poses a big question. Why?

I would admire to be so free of life's duties that I had nothing else to do but to figure myself out, if that's possible to do. But I have to focus my admiration on a man like Johann Sebastian Bach. He was the most prolific composer who ever lived. And yet he had a regular job, he lived in a home with no electricity, no central heating, no indoor plumbing, a quill pen and a house full of kids. How did he do it?

I suppose it would be great if we all had some sort of exuberant genius like that. Maybe we do in our own simple ways but just haven't found it. Bach evidently walked, ate, breathed, slept and dreamt music. Music came out of him like an exhalation. He came from a musical background and left behind some sons who were also excellent composers. It seems there was no doubt or chaos about it.

But why does it seem to take a lifetime for some of us to figure ourselves out? One could say that in spite of his primitive early 18th Century life style, he had lots of advantages and that's probably true. But it's also true that he made the most of them. He must have enjoyed composing music so much that he did it non-stop in spite of the obvious difficulties and interruptions. He probably never asked himself why.

There is a "why" attached to every bit of unfinished business in my life. I often wish I had come upon some early understanding of myself that would have led me into my life's destiny and my life's work which I would have pursued without looking back. To some extent I did that in the entertainment business. But now, retired, I am looking back. But more than that I'm looking forward, to what the possibilities are, to what my future is, to what I can become, to who I really am. I am trying to embrace that distant shore. I ask myself over again "What was it I really wanted way back then?" Every now and then I think I know. But then I'm not sure, and so there is unfinished business.

I didn't start out today to write an essay about Bach or an essay about me. It just turned out that way. I sometimes hold up my own experience as a metaphor for other people's lives and to help me grasp my own.. That makes me read self-centered and self-important. I don't mean it that way.

There is a dream. It's still alive. I am grateful for the time and opportunity to lead myself to the open door of that dream.

May you find your own dream and pursue it, non-stop, to that distant shore.

DB
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Beautiful Dreamer

Nobody wants to read the small print in dreams.

Ann Landers
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I think every important dream, and maybe every dream is important, has a prologue and an epilogue.

Last night I dreamt I was living in an unfamiliar community in a city. There were buildings all around and one block up at the top of a hill was a church. I think it was an Episcopal church, but I'm not sure about that. Since I hadn't been in a church for many decades I decided to go inside. So I climbed the hill and went through the door. I was greeted briefly by someone at the door. I expected to find pews and an alter but instead it was a large room, empty except for a few tables and chairs spread around. A few people were sitting by themselves in some of the chairs. Others were standing in small groups talking. A couple of people looked at me with suspicion because I was a stranger. One person came up and welcomed me and then went back to her group. In the center of the room there was a small table with a chair next to it. I went and sat in the chair. In a moment the pastor came by. We had a short, amiable conversation about nothing I can remember. After a while I got up and left. The follow at the door said to come back again. I asked him when the services were. He referred me to a list on the door and I saw that I had been at one of the services listed. I woke up.

Simple analysis: I went to church, nothing happened so I left.

Fine print: I went out on a quest and out of curiosity entered a realm where I expected to find an answer and instead found things I didn't understand or appeared to be without understanding.

More fine print: Faced with the dilemma of my own strange existence I attempted to elevate my thinking to a level above my immediate objects of understanding and found open space in my mind with nothing but solitary bubbles of reality.

Finer print: After painful effort, I entered the existential universe of disconnected ideas with benignly indifferent authority, and still with unsatisfied curiosity trying to connect with the unconnected and unconnectable.

Still finer print: Returning to "fine print" I went looking for something to please me and left without pleasure.

Prologue: Whereas Thursday was a day of surprise and pleasure. Friday was a day of pain. I had to make a painful walk to the market. Then my jaw was acting up with pain that clouded everything I did. I remember sitting on my bed wishing there was a prayer that would heal the pain in my jaw, the illnesses of my wretched body and the thorny doubts in my mind. So I dreamt of going where the prayers are and finding nothing.

Epilogue: Today, Saturday, the pain in the jaw was less so I could think more clearly about things, and I wondered and thought about the times in my life when I was happy.

One of them was when I was hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was a solitary journey through the tangled concepts of nature, following a trail of thought to surprises and discoveries.

Another happy time was with various theatre companies, specifically the Circle Rep Lab in New York City. Even though people were there to rehearse, perform and witness. to work, there was plenty of down time and during it we were entitled to discuss plays, events and ideas. It was a place of communication among people who were creative thinkers and doers. It was a place of friendship, humor and mutual respect. And so I had dreamt of a place where that was not happening to cause me to think about it.

Be aware of dreams. They walk among us.

DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend Contest

Alright, snce the answer to this weekend puzzle came popping up almost immediately I have a new one for Sunday. But first the results. The Grand Prize of a plastic White House bonnet (certified copy) goes to Salemslot9 of the Blogspot Tigers. Second place, close on her heels, comes Val, also of the Tigers.

Who are these first ladies?
(Match each of these ladies with the names of their gentlemen friends below.
Do as many as you can before you start to cheat.)

1. Ellen Axson
2. Edith Kermit Cardow
3. Nancy Davis
4. Julia Dent
5. Frances Folsom
6. Hannah Hoes
7. Elizabeth Kartright
8. Lucretia Rudolf
9. Margaret Mackall Smith
10. Claudia Taylor
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Grover Cleveland
James Garfield
Ulysses Grant
Lyndon Johnson
James Monroe
Ronald Reagan
Teddy Roosevelt
Zackary Taylor
Martin Van Buren
Woodrow Wilson

And the answer is:
1. Ellen Axson=Woodrow Wilson
2. Edith Kermit Cardow=Teddy Roosevelt
3. Nancy Davis=Ronald Reagan
4. Julia Dent=Ulysses Grant
5. Frances Folsom=Grover Cleveland
6. Hannah Hoes=Martin Van Buren
7. Elizabeth Kartright=James Monroe
8. Lucretia Rudolf=James Garfield
9. Margaret Mackall Smith=Zackary Taylor
10. Claudia Taylor=Lyndon Johnson

Now for today's nasty puzzle. It's a cryptogram. Lucky you.

1. AHSZUO
2. BZPPHUF
3. HAF SBO GHGHT
4. KLH
5. QW LAIOASLQA
6. SOUOTH
7. TZGOULQU
8. VLCZQU
9. YQAOT

Good luck.
DB
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