Dreams have fascinated me since childhood. My dreams always seemed so real and full of meaning. Hours after dreaming, I could recall in detail the images, voices, and symbols. Most often I didn’t know the meaning immediately, but I sensed it was important information that I needed to figure out. As if a secret message in code needed to be deciphered through careful observation with a willingness to embrace the hidden truth about myself and the world around me.
Sometimes I felt like Cinderella waking up in the middle of a dream… finding myself in an exciting, glamorous, improbable, far-fetched life. And then I would wonder, does one use dreams to rehearse life? Or life to rehearse dreams? Or perhaps I’ve awakened to a life I dreamed of living.
As a kid, one of my greatest role models was my great-aunt Gladys. A retired school teacher, she married a banker and they traveled the world. Once a teacher, always a teacher, she sent picture postcards from her travels to family and friends. It was so exciting for me to receive her postcards from far-away places. Before going to sleep, I would place the postcard on my heart and imagine it was a magic carpet that would fly me to the place on the picture postcard. Her postcards encouraged me to travel and explore our great big wonderful planet. Years later, as a young adult, I began traveling and have now visited most of the places Aunt Gladys explored.
Visiting Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2000, I was reminded of a postcard Aunt Gladys had sent me as a child. It was of a beautiful couple in a dramatic pose—dancing tango in a square. Watching tango dancers live in Buenos Aires, I smiled. Dramatic indeed!
To honor my great aunt and her positive influence in my life, I wrote a children’s book titled “Postcard Passages.” The above photo is of Great Aunt Gladys and Great Uncle Lyall riding camels in Egypt.
Today I live in a small beach town in Uruguay, not far from Buenos Aires. Last summer I met and became friends with a fellow writer who happens to be a tango dancer and teacher in Buenos Aires. Small world when you dream BIG.