Dreams Deferred and Dreams Fulfilled

At the beginning of 2007, I said I would not make any New Year resolutions because the ones I had made all the previous years should be getting ready to kick in full force and would make any further resolutions unnecessary. That actually turned out to be truer than I would have expected.

In the previous years, I had made several literary promises to myself. I had promised that no matter how well or bad it might turn out, I would finish writing my first novel. I also promised that I would complete a second book of poetry for those readers who had been waiting for one since ESSENCE Magazine started publishing selections from my Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black manuscript. And I promised that I would think about what it would take for me to write a book dealing with life in my hometown, Savannah, Georgia.

Those were important promises that had been made and abandoned many times over during the course of my––and any writer’s––primary occupation: that of Living. While gazing wistfully out the corner of my eye at my pen and keyboard, I dutifully performed daily those tasks all responsible adults perform in the course of being responsible adults. I earned semi-sufficient paychecks, mowed the lawn, took care of those I loved to the best of my ability, and slept soundly while dreaming about my pen and keyboard.

Then circumstance rearranged the conditions of my life and I became somewhat like Annie Dillard writing at Tinker Creek, or Thoreau at Walden Pond. The branches of a huge oak tree shaded the aging house in which I dwelled with one visiting muse after another. They all brought the same message: get it done. Complete the novel, compose the poetry, write the book of nonfiction. Get it done no matter what. Don’t worry about being poor, don’t cry about your neglected romance, don’t dream about that which you can actually accomplish. Get it done.

That was when the promises of years gone by honored themselves and truly did kick in full force. The years of longing to produce a certain kind of writing had also been years of taking notes and making outlines so that when the time came to actually write the novel, the poetry, and the nonfiction, I could and would. Though I hadn’t realized it at the time, a kind of plan was in effect, and judging by the evidence of completed works, it was a good one. How the world is likely to respond to those completed works is a different matter. For now, having reclaimed and fulfilled so many dreams deferred is satisfaction and reward enough.

Please stay tuned for more…
Author-Poet Aberjhani