Some things are meants to be...

The first star of the night, the Wishing Star, always hears the same wish from me: I want to see my books on (and flying off) bookstore shelves. I've been writing since I opened my first diary in fourth grade and wrote about how clearly I could see the world once I got my new glasses. Now I'm waiting anxiously for my new prescription to be filled, but there must be some sort of hold-up with the optometrist!

See, here's the thing. I want to be a published writer. I want my students to read my books. I want to tell the stories screaming to come out of my story-telling head.

I must not be ready -- this is what makes the wait okay.

I believe I will not become a published author until I am ready to move from the wanna-be ranks. But the road out of the depths of wish-dom is long and hard and no one has made a road map. Or have they? Is there some magic spell that will speed me through the steps? Will I wave that magic wand? Last night a writer friend dedicated a book to me, saying she hopes that dedication helps my wish come true sooner. Will it? Should it?

That's the question. If I wave that magic wand, what lesson will I have missed? Skipping a step in the process may mean the difference between a minor mistake and a crucial error. If I am not ready to succeed, will I be unprepared for the masses of critics that flock around all new writers? If I am not full of unsinkable self-esteem, will a child's question destroy my muse?

Maybe my last lesson could be solved by a simple set of bifocals. Maybe by skipping a step I will forever be squinting.

I think I have learned enough to understand that I have very loving and patient guardians watching over my dreams. I don't receive a gift for which I am not ready to fight, and I have been very lucky so far. But have I fought enough? Has my name flooded enough agent's offices and publisher's desks? I wonder. That part is not going to be done with magic or wishes. That part is my job. I think I still have some work to do toward my dream.

And yet, I wonder if I am being confused by the illusion of a world that doesn't exist. Are my "publication dreams" merely a way to sway me against something much better that will Be.

So, that being said, I must remember that I have volunteered to wait. If this dream I have is meant to be, it's only being human that makes me impatient. My wishing star is not ignoring me. She is waiting for the right wish. I just need to have a little more faith ... and maybe a little pixie dust.


 

The Love that Believed

For Valentine's Day

When you walked into my life
I knew.
Not like you know the lessons from a blackboard
or a textbook; I knew the way you know that day’s weather
won’t ruin your picnic.
I believed in you so I let you borrow my trust;
I’ve never wanted it back.

When I met you, I knew.
Not in the way we would talk for hours
or how we found time to be together when others
scurried off the beach.
It was in the way I couldn’t look in your eyes
without blushing
and the way you always make me laugh.


When you said hello my heart knew
I would never let you go.
You are the North to my compass.
When kudzu chokes the sculpted maze of
everyday life or my personal hurricanes
ravage well-crafted dreams
the serenity in your eyes steadies me.

Somehow, though, I always knew.
Being with you felt right in the pink streams
of the fading sun and in the quiet trickle
of a winding mountain stream.
It still feels right in the hot ocean breezes and
the whispering wind coursing through palm fronds.
I'm glad I believed in the us that still makes my heart skip.

Alpha and Omega

A story is tickling at my brain again, starting as a poem ...

I know you. There is a ghost in your eyes;

it hovers with memories of a love
truer than the roar of the oceans and the silence of the night.
Time has no power over something so strong.

We’ve been here before – two halves of a whole;

inseparable over the cresting tides of eternity but
ripped apart by a Today that won't allow
the burning of two hearts beating as one.

My soul calls through time and you answer
with the phantom of some long-ago kiss.
You hear me when I need you, even when
the panic in my own cries is muted by cold winds.

Glimpses of the past can’t soothe my pain when I wonder 

if the soft memories of my lips warm you when life gets cold.
When you call, do I appear with whispers of our promise?
Does my love travel to you when you reach for me?

You are the beginning and the end of my existence.
I will go to the edge of time to fold myself into your arms
and bring you home. I wait with a heart at peace because I know
that somewhere, over the distance that separates us, you wait too.