Day 12: The Beauty Of Dreams

There are some dreams which are very, very small and very powerful.  The kind of dreams I'm talking about are those little things that you want very much when you can't have them - in the same way that a prisoner longs for fresh bread and a soft pillow, or someone sitting in an office wishes desperately to be sitting on a beach with a cold drink in hand.

My little 'dream' is hot sunshine, a pool or beach, and an ice-cold Coke in a glass with a slice of lime in it.  The thing I love about this little dream is that it is entirely possible.  Like Hobbes in my favourite cartoon, I'm wishing for a "stupid field" - and I can get it.

So, today I got the beauty of my little dream. I sat out by the pool in the villa I was staying in, baking in the hot sunshine and able to jump into the cold pool anytime. I had an cold Coke poured over ice cubes in a glass (poured out of an original Coke bottle, no less!), and even a slice of lime to complete it.

(photo from www.gocomics.com)

I'm finding that there's something very fascinating about the word 'beauty'.  Sometimes it means physical beauty, as in something we enjoy looking at.  But it also includes so much more than that.  There's the beauty of a game well played; the haunting beauty heard in music; the beauty of a new idea that excites you and stirs up the mind; and the beauty of having something small you've wanted for a long time.  Beauty is a deep, many-faceted word with a plethora of meanings: something that strikes the heart, touches the soul in some way, makes you sometimes want to weep and other times to laugh and sometimes just stand still and take it all in.

May you experience the beauty of a little dream today.