“The Dream That You Wish”
Introduction
To create is divine. We each have, within ourselves, the capacity to harness this ability to create. We can paint beauty, sculpt love, and write compassion. These talents, given to us by God, the Universe, whatever you believe, were meant to be used. They cry out from our heart and souls, begging us to pick up the brush, the pen, the chisel. With these tools, we can shape the world into what we desire. With one line of text, you can soften the hardest of hearts. With a single stroke of color, you can inspire awe. The written word in particular has great power over the heart and mind. An imagination is the one thing we as human beings have that no other being on earth does. With words, you can fashion an image in another’s mind. You can place within their thoughts feelings of fear, love, doubt, happiness, grief, delight, and every other emotion known to man. With words, you cause others to create something from nothing in their own minds. Where there was no image, a character now resides. Where there were empty ideas, a plot has taken form. From there the person infers and creates for themselves a completely new world in which they can dwell for a short time. As a writer, not only is one given the tools to create for themselves, they are also able to put the tools of creation into the minds of countless others.
At least, this was what I believed. It was this knowledge that I could give so much more to others through writing that inspired such passion in me when I was young. I had ideals, just like every other college graduate. I had goals and plans. I was going to change the world one word at a time. I had just received my degree in English and Literature. I could have gone directly to graduate school and gotten a masters, then a PHD and taught the skill of creation to new and open minds. But changing the world that way would take too long. I wanted to write. I wanted to make a difference now. And so I took my degree and with it began to do the only real option to me.
I got a part time job at a locally owned used book store and began to put my talents to use.
Things began slow. When there is pressure to complete something for a class, that fire under your behind to get a good grade forces results out of you. On your own, you have only the deadlines you create yourself, and a completely free range of options before you. I was staring into an endless chasm of freedom and I was terrified. Should I pursue non-fiction? Write some dramatic, heart wrenching piece on the truth of this dark and twisted society in which we live? Should I go for a witty piece of fiction that caused the reader both to laugh and to think at the same time? No. It was May. I didn’t have it in me to write anything remotely dismal or frivolous. I was awakened and caught up in the swirl of life that surrounded me. The life of nature. That was the spring I took to the outdoors, getting my fill of every living and non living thing in the natural world that I could.
Everyone has a life changing event sometime in their lives. For some it happens when they are young and barely able to process it. For others it happens in the last quarter of their lives when there is little they can do about it. Some could say I was lucky to receive my life changing experience in luscious years of my adult youth. Yes, some could say that. But they would be wrong. To experience what I did in a time of such heightened emotional and intellectual being was almost more than my young and inexperienced mind could bear. If I had been a child, I may have been able to recover over the years. If I were a senior I might have been more experienced and prepared.
No. I was young, naive, and fully ready to lose myself to the wonder of what happened that spring. I gave myself completely to the experience only thinking of what I could gain from it. The result of the events of which I speak is this. The only work I have ever written and published. Take it as you will, for I know very well that the circumstances within it seem wholly improbable. But know this, for better or worse, to create is divine and those who use this inherent talent must someday come face to face with the reality of their creations.
Chapter 1
Like I said before, I was fresh out of college and enamored with all things natural. I was lucky to grow up in this small town and go to school nearby. I have since then lived my whole life here. It has the tangible charm of all small towns. Most days you can’t take 5 steps down the street without running into a familiar face. Waves and smiles are abundant and help is almost always a free commodity. And yet with all that talk of wanting to change the world and having ambitions, I never really left this place. I chose a college only an hour away and came home as often as possible. This place drew me to it like a magnet. I didn’t know why then and I still don’t really know why now-a mystery I think I will never solve. I don’t try to. Some places are singular in their appeal and this place was extraordinary in its ability to keep those who knew it. Not many have heard of it and those who haven’t spent summers wading its nearby creeks or fishing in its ponds have no desire to know more about it. But those who are already here seem to always find a reason to stay. The result is we don’t often get strangers (though we would welcome them if we did) and we hardly ever have to say goodbye to anyone for good (unless it’s in death). This suited us. Suited me. I could change the world from the comfort of the home that I loved just as many authors before me had. And even if I did have to leave for any extended period of time, the college was in a fairly large town an hour away and I could work there if needs be.
That spring, however, leaving was never a need and I was glad. As a child I had wandered the woods and played make-believe in the fields of this place. I had spent hot summers in sparkling waters and the winters on snow covered slopes. In college, writing papers and reading text books kept me inside more often than not. And so it was with excitement and joy that I took to the outdoors again that spring of frightening freedom. I found myself on grassy brook banks and sandy lake beaches. I dipped my feet in ice cold waters and reclined on welcoming beds of tall grass. But my favorite places to frequent were the shady paths of the forest. Some days I would let the trail take me where it would until I reached some patch of simple beauty. There I would sit and let words flow out of my pen. Other times I would brave the wild woods off the trail and find some untouched clearing. It was in one of these clearings that I met her. The little tree swallow.
