I received an email from the young guy who built this website. While we had a contentious and sometimes aggravated relationship during the creation of this "venue", we've settled into a nice friendship. He titled his email "Hey Trooper" and wrote, "Wow Linda. Fantastic blog. You are amazing. I look up to you Linda. You will do whatever it takes to get it done, and for the most part, many of us won't."

I was talking to my girlfriend about the blog. We were discussing the factory workers I met, and she told me, not for the first time, that most people don't DREAM the way I do. I can't get my head around that. What does she mean people don't dream the way I do? Everyone has dreams, don't they?

Ok. So mine are a little "out there" or extravagant or lofty.

When I was a kid, I read Erich Von Danikens book "Chariots of The Gods." That book made me want to be an archaeologist. So I went to university with the intent of following that dream. What they didn't tell me was that archaeology is a science, and a scientist I was not. I failed first year archaeology and took up history instead. But I made the attempt. Even before that, I was somewhat of an artist. A lot of kids go through that phase. But I fancied a creative life, compiled a portfolio and applied to the Ontario College of Art. I didn't get in. Interestingly enough, I didn't find out until my Mom told me this year, it wasn't my art they objected to; it was my high school marks. Until I reached university where I learned to excel, I was an indifferent student, who was only interested in two classes: art and theatre arts. The point being, I had a dream and followed it through.

I built a craft business, became a yoga teacher, a Life Coach and published writer....all because I WANTED to.

I'm not naive enough to believe that most people have the knack of the "follow through". THAT'S the part of achieving a dream that separates the tough nuts from the donuts. But I believe that everyone has a dream. I know it.

A couple of months ago I was interested to hear that my sister had come up with the idea to work from home at the same time I did. She was showing me the literature and I guess I got overly excited (for her) and jumped in with a hundred suggestions with respect to not only starting up, but expanding and adding on....until she looked at me with a horrified grimace and shouted, "I don't want the world like you do Lin, I just want to LIVE."

But isn't that a dream? To just LIVE. I know what "living" means to her. It means being able to cultivate her beautiful gardens in the cool summer mornings before the kids get up. It means being able to give her kids the luxury of her attention and to give them every advantage and the safety to build their own little personalities and enable their own dreams to unfold. It means taking care of her gorgeous house, so lovingly decorated. These are the things that make my sister's life meaningful.
I just have a different mission. Yes I want a beautiful home. I'm a gardener like my sister, but my specialty is indoor plants. And yes, I want the money and time to devote to their cultivation for my pleasure and my well-being. I want so many things that constitute a meaningful and fun life....but I also want things that I guess fall into the province of "dreams" and I'm willing to do all the hard stuff it takes to make them come true.

I printed the little email my web guy sent and have been carrying it around with me for the past day. What my young friend is not aware of is that while I'll do what it takes to reach a dream, a lot of the time I'm scared. Like right now. During the 5 months I've been a "displaced" person, I've suffered some major blows to my confidence. I've become withdrawn and my old blustery kick-ass attitude has been replaced by a good measure of self-doubt. I've become silent and introverted. The place I'm staying was not the safe haven I imagined it to be, and as a result I suffer from constant anxiety. I'm not wanted here. I ache with unrelenting loneliness and sadness.

In 6 days I will be going "home". Back to Toronto. To a new job. To find a new place of my own. I'm going to carry that email with me for the next little while. My friend gave me a "going away" gift that is beyond priceless. He reminded me that I have made a difference in people's lives; that I am worthy of admiration and by extension, someone to be inspired by; and he reminded me that I've got the courage to do or be anything I want. I'm going to dust off my dreams and put them into play. Whether or not they take is irrelevant. I will have tried.

On July 30 I'll be starting a new job in Toronto. It's not my dream job and it will scarcely pay the bills, but it's a start. In the meantime I got myself hired on at a factory for two weeks.
Yesterday was orientation, but today the real work started. If there was any way to describe hell on earth, that job would be it.
Not only am I physically depleted, in one day I felt every vestige of joy and hope sucked out of me. I watched them float down the conveyer belt to be laminated, boxed and shipped to your homes for you to feast on.
MY joy. MY hope. YOUR dinner.

Maybe it was the proximity to the women who have devoted 15, 25 and even 30 years to the sort of manual labour that takes a toll on body, mind and spirit. If one person smiled today, I didn't see it. But at breaks and lunch I did hear a lot of excited talk about extra shifts and more money.
That's all it's about with them. There's no talk of dreams or aspirations. There's no inkling whatsoever that these people want better for themselves.

So I was thinking about courage today.

I know a fella who was trapped in the factory life. He had a young family to provide for, but HE had aspirations. Not only for the betterment of his home life, but for himself. He's full to the brim with ideas and the know how to get them done. He charted a course to a different company, and eventually, by single-mindedly pursuing excellence, landed himself a management job.

Now THAT is courage.

I'm proud of myself too. Not for a million dollars would anyone have predicted I would ever work in a factory, not for one day, never mind two weeks. It's not that I'm a princess. I can work as hard as or harder than most; but I cannot abide a pursuit that is wasteful of my natural talents and my predisposition to make a difference in the world. To spend my days, even 10 of them, wasting any minute I could be spending on higher pursuits is hateful to me. So why am I doing it? Because I'm penniless and refuse to live on the handouts of family and friends.

Courage is a virtue I probably prize above all others. Maya Angelou said, "Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."

My Mom once said I was "courage in action". I liked that. It spoke of walking my walk and talking my talk.

I try to do that in everything. In work, in following my aspirations and especially in love.
Love is the most courageous act of all. I heard a story once of a guy who was pretty set against loving anybody ever again after a traitorous ex-wife destroyed his faith in the notion of love ever after. One evening he was firing up the motor on his bike getting ready to leave his lover's house when she called out, "I love you." Over the roar of the engines, she heard for the first time, "I love you too." Now THAT was courage.

Cicero said, "A man of courage is also full of faith."
Courage in love is like a general backed up by the soldiers of patience, honour, compassion, kindness, hope, belief, desire and above all, faith.

That dude must have had a lot of faith in his lady to give his supreme act of courage into her hands to protect and cherish. Very cool guy. Lucky lady.

It's like Dan Rather said, "Courage is being afraid, but going on anyhow."
Isn't that the truth? My legs still shake every time I apologize, every time I say something I know someone can choose to reject, every time I step outside my comfort zone because I want what's outside it more than I'm willing to accept what is. But I make those rubbery legs take one step after another and call it courage. Why shouldn't I? There's nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Like that guy. The reward for his courage is the steadfast love and loyalty of a lady who, unlike the soul destroying ex-wife, will never hurt him, will never betray his faith and who will stand by his side no matter what.

I'm staying at my sister's for a couple of days to "get away from it all." She and her family are vacationing and it's just me and their dog. I was asking him a few minutes ago what his problem is. I think he's confused by the sight of me sitting at the computer. This is usually where his beloved "master" sits; my teenage nephew. I stand up, get the dog's toy. Tussle with him for a bit, then sit back down. He's still whining. I started thinking about the food chain and frankly from where I sit right now, I'd rather be a dog.

He's lonely and heartsick waiting for his family to return. I know how he feels. I've been separated from all I love since March 1st. But when I tried a bit of whining this morning while talking to my ex-husband and then my best girlfriend, they weren't as inclined to throw me a chew toy, and too far away to gather me up in their arms for a much needed hug. What I got instead was a lot of tough love from a couple of tough critics. What I got was a couple of people imploring me to to dump my baggage and embrace a new life.

Dump my baggage? Have they ever looked in my bags?

I open one and I see my "old life". From the time I was a kid, I knew what I wanted for my life. I wanted to be happy. Just that. As a kid I didn't know whether I'd be privileged later in life or whether I'd be poverty-stricken. I've been both so far and it hasn't mattered. Happiness is always there. Always within reach and I have never once bought it with money.
Since I want happiness in my "new life", why should I throw that bag away?

The next bag holds all the people in my life. Two of whom I talked to today. If I was the type of person to throw away my baggage, the last person in the world I'd be talking to is my ex-husband. But the fact is, he was a friend 27 years ago and a dearer friend today. Just because we weren't suited to be life partners doesn't diminish his value as a confidant and friend.

The last bag holds something I would defend and protect with my life. It fell from a plastic green chair onto my floor and into my heart. It holds the most precious gift I've ever been given. It holds my joy and my laughter. It holds a beautiful smile and a loving heart. It holds surprise and desire. It holds earned trust and patience. It holds the sweet scent of an island floating in the Atlantic and the smell of wind-touched skin. It holds my fool, my thinker, my beloved.

Without my baggage any new life I earn for myself, would be no life at all without them.

Our baggage makes us who we are.

If I did not carry the burden of a failed marriage, I would never have known the real meaning of love. If I did not carry baggage I would never have learned to think outside the box. I would never have learned patience. I would never have dreamt as large or aimed as high or believed as deeply. I would never have opened my door to wonder or learned that loyalty to a cause or a person would make me a better person. I would never have learned how to forgive.

I never want to travel lightly through life. May my bags get heavier every year. May they hold the treasures of my heart. May they burst at the seams and spill all that I need and hold dear onto my path.

Like my doggy friend, this morning all I needed was a hug. Didn't think I needed to defend my right to keep my baggage. And I STILL need a hug. Oh to be a dog!!