September 15, 2005 - Dreams

I started my drive back home this morning. The route took me over the Hoover Dam and into Arizona. As I was firing down the road, eastward, I noticed a strange sight and had to pull over. I had apparently found Santa’s workshop. I always thought it was at the North Pole and not Arizona. Perhaps they relocated…reindeer don’t like the heat, I suppose. Anyway, I found it so strange to see a place that was probably once such a source of happiness, now abandoned and covered with graffiti. Different interpretations flooded my mind. It was a little bit of a cliché but I thought about the loss of innocence. Many of us were raised believing in Santa Claus. The holidays were filled with the promise of gifts from the jolly guy, if we had behaved throughout the year. My sister and I always had something in our stockings, though we were usually pretty rotten. Then one day, someone lets it slip…there is no Santa (I hope I didn’t ruin anything for anyone). Mom and/or Dad was the one who ate the cookies that you left for Santa and suddenly there was a good explanation why the toys you received from Santa still had the Toys-R-Us price stickers on them. It may have been a bit of a shock for some but most of us got over it. Still, it is a shame to lose a little bit of the sweetness of life.


As I drove farther, I though further. A line from one of my CD’s (which kept me company for at least one time zone today) rang clear…

“You’re so full of dreams, you don’t know where to put them. You have to set some of them loose…”

Life has always had its up’s and down’s and the down’s often have to do with the realizing of the loss of a dream. Then again, dreams are so often what spur us on. I suppose the crux of the matter is to know which ones to set loose and which to keep dear. It’s too bad that too often, we figure out which to set loose and which to hold on to through trial and error.