Never Not Amazed: Dream magic

In sixth grade, my friends and I volunteered to clean the attic of our friend Kristin’s parents’ garage so we could have a clubhouse. We pushed and swallowed years of dust to carve out a meeting space. As much as an attic can, it sparkled when we finished.

We never met.

I don’t recall why we needed a clubhouse. Maybe Kristin’s parents wanted their garage cleaned and knew they could trick us into doing it. Maybe we had a mission in mind but doomed ourselves with poor planning. For whatever reason, we dreamed small and lost.

That same year, my sixth grade class went to Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg. I remember very little of the trip except for a light-up board to illustrate troop movement during the battle and a night in a hotel room singing elementary school choir songs in four-part harmony with my roommates. The light-up board was educational. The singing was magical.

My spirit soared with the high notes; our bond grew with the harmony. We sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” like no four tweens in a hotel room ever had. I saw big things in our future (including solos for me, but I was willing to share the spotlight). Next stop: Carnegie Hall. All we had to do was practice, practice, practice.

I was still dreaming big the next day, until a doubter brought me down. Home and lumbering off the bus, a classmate sneered, “I hear you’re going on tour.” A friend, our soprano, jumped to my defense! She said everyone knows the idea of a singing group was just a joke.

I felt stripped bare, as if I’d ridden the bus home naked and everyone noticed my skin the moment I stepped on the sidewalk.

Before I let this story tug too hard on your heart, you need to know I have precious little musical aptitude. Despite my love of music, years of piano lessons yielded one single, shaky performance of “Cockles and Mussels,” and I hated every moment of practice. I didn’t go to a performing arts school. I wasn’t paying my dues in sweat or dancing my feet to bloody stumps.

Around the same time my singing career crashed and burned, I also wanted to be a hairdresser, a Supreme Court justice, a dancer, an actor, a teacher, and a large animal vet. Those are just the ones I remember.

The hairdresser dream came out of a day at the public pool. I combed my friend’s hair during the car ride home and it dried in loose curls. Her mom said it looked so good that she didn’t want her to ruin it by washing the chlorine out. Had scissors been in play that day, her mother would have taken a very different tone. This was a one-off, luck-of-the-moment outcome that didn’t matter and mattered a lot.

Moments that prop us up, no matter the reason, are important. There’s pride in doing anything well and being noticed.

And that’s important because dreams are fragile, tricky business.

One magic moment can set your dream machine in motion and one harsh word can break it apart.

How do dreamers know which dreams to follow and which to let go? Maybe passion drives dreamers? Maybe they don’t notice setbacks or maybe, when they let a dream go, they know it wasn’t the right dream for them.

Kermit the Frog pinned his dreams on rainbows and, after twists and turns and a long bike ride with skinny green legs, he came out with Miss Piggy by his side.

And there are people who believe so strongly in their waking dreams that their brains work for them while they’re sleeping.

Albert Einstein came to understand the universal laws he’s famous for in his sleep. James Cameron’s vivid dreams gave us the movie “Avatar.” Dr. Frederick Banting discovered insulin in a dream and saved countless millions.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that galvanized people around the world and still propels us today.

They didn’t confine their dreams — asleep or awake, their brains steered their feet.

I doubt my friends, that day on the sidewalk, had begun to consider their future. I learned young, and I’m grateful to have unlearned, that the certainty of a no is comforting, even it doesn’t yield the outcome you want. It’s easier to doubt than believe.

Belief requires faith in yourself. Faith in your ability to decide and make magic.

I’ve kept my music dreams alive. As a teen I was in church bell choir and was so on top of clanging I got three bells. I used to memorize information for tests by singing it to myself, and I make road trips feel short for me (and long for everyone else) by singing along to every song on the radio.

Dreams change, grow and nourish you in all their forms.

In this month of rebirth and renewal — the first full month of spring, when we’re gaining light in leaps each day, flowers are blooming — dreams feel within reach. Anything is possible if we believe.

I wish you all magic, dreams, and that rainbow connection.

Erin O’Mara lives in Harpswell and serves on the Harpswell News Board of Directors.