
I dream. I am at my grandparent’s home, in the city where I was born. My life is diminished to meager existence. It has never been a good life but now it is at it worst. There is no joy left, no life energy. I am on the outside, looking in. In desperation, I sense that I could still come out of this stagnation and start a completely new life. I can know joy and I can be free of this feeling of breathing under the mirky water, dreaming of fresh air. Desperately, I try to think of something that can excite me, that can, maybe under different circumstances, bring some hint of joy back into my life. A sense of needing to start working in a place that I love comes over me. A place where I can reconnect with life, learn how to be around people again, bring a completely different vibration into my being. Suddenly, I remember dreaming one day about working in the big beautiful bookstore on main street. I know I cannot work there now. I am too weak and sick physically to hold a job, but it occurs to me that I can just visit it for now, feel its energy, begin to allow the idea of it to start sipping into my bones. I realize that unlike before when I was far-far away from this city, the city of my dreams, I now find myself in it, walking distance to this lovely bookstore. The marvel of it! I get dressed and slowly walk out of the door. I am so unwell, I can hardly walk. I am sick to my stomach but I keep walking. I arrive on the main street. It is as beautiful and full of life as I remember it (a true European charm), but I am aware that I cannot appreciate it. I am too sick, too exhausted and completely lacking the capacity to enjoy or appreciate all its amazingness. I keep walking. I arrive at the spot where the bookstore used to be. It is there no more. Instead there is a very sterile utilitarian-looking building with a sterile shelfs, full of sterile books and an automated check out. The charm, the beauty are completely gone. I recognize that I would not want to even visit a place like this, let alone aspire to work here. I wonder why would anyone take such beautiful and joyful place and remake it into this soulless depressive state. As I am looking at it in awe, I wonder if I should be taken aback, devastated, my mind screaming “See, you tried! It is not possible for you to heal or be happy again!”. But the mind is quiet. Instead after some deliberation, it says, “Well, that’s a bummer. We definitely do not want any part of this place. We will have to keep looking for a place that we like. This is disappointing but that is what life is all about. We need to learn to accept all of life, including its seeming imperfections. We have got the right idea (find joy, taste it, even a little bit at a time, keep at it!), now we just need to keep following it!” I realize that I am too exhausted now to even stand there, I need to turn back and walk home. I wonder to myself if I should instead stop by my favorite small bakery and pick up some of its famous pastries for myself and my grandparents. I haven’t tasted them since my childhood. The bakery is just down the street. It will tire me even more to walk there and it might be another disappointment, but why not? I turn away from home and start making my way slowly down the street.