Dreams can come true

I went to see The Castaways at Urban Coffee Lounge in Kirkland tonight. It’s a ukulele band that does cover songs from the ’80s. I’ll give you a minute while you read that sentence again. They’re fabulous. You wouldn’t think a bunch of ukuleles and some drums could sound so cool, but they do.

The lone woman in the group is a girl I knew when we were wee things — I have a picture of her at my sixth birthday party. She was always very creative and funny. She’s a well-known travelĀ  writer and blogger who gets paid to write about her trips to Africa or Antarctica. You’d think that would be enough for a girl, but lucky her, for the last few months she’s been part of this band.

The Castaways on Friday night

It was great to see her having a blast, breaking her first string in a professional situation, joking about the next part of the rock n’ roll fantasy — lighting a uke on fire, or trashing a hotel room? It made me think of the way that the dreams of our youth can come true later in life and in a way we might not expect.

When I was a kid I had the same dream I have now, to be a writer. I get paid to do it, so in a way my goal has been realized. I love to sing, and a few times a year I chant Torah or Haftarah at my synagogue. It’s kind of like performing. But if I was clearly thinking about my future self, it usually involved a popular book or two, not writing for arcane professional healthcare publications. And by singing I mean being paid for it. But Pam’s experience makes me hopeful that even at 47, whatever dreams I still have from childhood are still achievable.

What are your childhood — or childish — dreams do you have? And what dreams have already come true?

 

2 thoughts on “Dreams can come true

  1. I still dream of being a famous musician. However, I want to be famous for doing the music I want to do – creative, quirky, and rough around the edges (http://catscradlerobbers.com). I’ve lived the professional music life, touring for months at a time and sleeping in my car, running up more debts than paychecks. I’ve had critical acclaim, including being called “a genuine virtuoso” for my guitar playing by a bona fide celebrity. For a few months in 1989, my music was in heavy rotation in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Now I get paid to manage software projects and I get to do the music I love in my spare time, unfettered and for free. Groupies aside, I guess that’s the real dream.

    -N

  2. Mean lady toured Germany and other European ports of call. She’s happy making money making music but doesn’t want the life it would take to make a living at it. I get it. And I’m sure a harsh book tour schedule might have me pining for the days of working from home in my fuzzy slippers. But I’d like to find that out through personal experience rather than supposition.

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