Living the Dream

My last blog entry was dated in March of this year, when winter in Anchorage was still in full swing. All of the sudden, we're past Solstice. How did this happen? Is it possible that the most noteworthy thing that has happened to me in the last few months is that I broke my OXO garlic press with my own brute strength?

Q: So what have you been doing all this time?

A: I've been living fucking Julia Roberts' dream.

Q: Come again?

A: That's right. I've been living her fucking dream.

A while back, I read this disturbing little piece about Julia Roberts in the paper:

"My dream is to be a highly fulfilled and productive stay-at-home mom and wife," the Oscar-winning actress tells Vanity Fair magazine. "The highest high would be growing our food that I then make, and then composting and growing more -- that kind of circle." Roberts, 40, says that life would involve having "my own creative outlet, even if it's silly needlework and stuff like that."

Anyone examining the activities of my life this past year would have to put his magnifying glass down and exclaim, "By golly! She has been living Julia Roberts' Circle of Life!" (Minus the children, of course.)

Useless needlework, neurotic composting... all par for the course. Not that I am trying to brag, but today I literally brought greens from my yard into work (Chinese cabbage, bok choy, and Japanese mizuna to be precise) which I then steamed in a tupperware full of seafood soup made by... who else but yours truly!

As much as I'd like to credit myself with living the Oscar-winning actress' dream, the more likely story is that I am not living her dream life, but rather, in fact, Julia Roberts is crazy. Joy and fulfillment, like many things, are relative I suppose. Not that I want to be Julia Roberts (perhaps the poor thing has trouble finding jeans that fit her long legs, for example), but I can't say that Ms. Roberts' Circle of Life has left me feeling Ultimate Satisfaction or her "Highest High." I am not so fulfilled that I am ready to meet my maker, for instance. And does Ms. Roberts really think she can find nirvana knee-deep in dandelions? A dreamy ideal of compost is all fine and good in the abstract, but what happens when your carbon-to-nitrogen ratio is off and your pile stops doing its thing??

We're taught to have dreams and to pursue them, but what happens if you actually achieve them and live their reality? In some ways, the rapturous drive toward a dream is more compelling than any experience, especially since Reality has a tendency to disappoint. How many of us have idealized that member of the opposite sex, convinced him to date us, and then been sorely disappointed by how loudly he snores? Julia strives for needlework and composting because (for some ridiculous reason) she is unable to achieve these objectives in her life. Having won the Academy award, she naturally has to set her sights elsewhere among the dirt and pastimes of Victorian ladies.

It's an old but true cliche that we all want what we can't have. And yes, Ms. Roberts, you most certainly cannot have my embroidery and composting worms. I, too, am certainly guilty of occasionally wanting what I can't have, but having not yet achieved international stardom, I fortunately must set my sights on more traditional targets.

Regardless, there is something beautiful in having your dreams but not quite achieving them. Langston Hughes had this to say about a dream deferred:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

To the Explosion, then, and the wild ride to it.

Tweet