childhood dreams…

My afternoon on Venice Beach lead me to these fine fellows who spent three hours creating this wonderful sand castle. I took a few pinhole photographs of them, and have yet to send them, but I will…. perhaps tonight I will make time for that. I would like to build a castle like this one day.

My sister sent me a link to this video and after I watched it, I sat here for just a moment before I decided, I’m going to blog about it! I definitely enjoy blogging.

Watch the video for yourself, it’s 10 minutes long, but incredibly thought provoking. I won’t spoil it, but one of the main messages was, what were your childhood dreams? Did you achieve them? If not, and you tried, then it was about the experience. He thinks very similarly to the way I think. I am all about the experience. Sure I’m still paying my student loans and I’ll be paying them off for years! After all I spent 160K on combined undergrad/grad schools and the experience was worth every penny.

I would have to say, my boyfriend keeps me focused and for that I am truly grateful, otherwise I would still be like my childhood self. Every time I read about something new I wanted to be it when I grew up.

I spent time wanting to be a scientist and had my chemistry set, telescope and microscope. I would mix chemicals together with dirt to see what would happen. I would gather the neighborhood kids and put on chemistry magic shows for them. When I learned the word ‘wicked’ every thing was ‘wicked’. I would ask what color did I make, the simple answer would be red, but unless they said ‘wicked’ red, they would be wrong.

I spent almost a lifetime wanting to be a writer. Perhaps that is why I love to blog. When I was a little girl I would make weekly/monthly newsletters for my family. When I was 10, I wrote my first book of poetry and tried to sell it. With every 10 cent copy I sold I had to write the book out by hand. The book was full of haiku’s. I had learned about them that spring in school and was still obsessed with them come summer. One Christmas I received the best gift ever! A publishing program! Instead of making my newsletter/magazines by hand, I could now do them on the computer. When I was 13 I spent the whole summer writing a movie about my friends. It filled 5 notebooks. When I tried to film it, that’s when I got bored. I didn’t know anything about filming a movie and definitely didn’t know the first thing about editing. Quite honestly I don’t think I knew I had to edit. I just thought it would magically turn out the way I wanted.
I wrote for my high school newspaper, if fact I was the editor. I went to undergrad and double majored in photography and journalism. I soon found out that I wasn’t cut out for journalism. There are too many rules and I just wanted to write. I’ve had stories published and wished I went the route of critic when I was in college because there are less rules and more excitement. Once I graduated from college and had some time on my hands, I started to write my first novel. I had 80 pages before I lost the zip disk that I had my life’s work saved on. I looked everywhere for that zip disk. I tore apart my apartment and even Gary’s apartment at the time. I had just met him and carried that silly disk with me everywhere. I never had the energy to do it again.

There was a time in my life when I wanted to be a lawyer. Gary says I should have been one, but I have friends that are and I’m not so sure I would have enjoyed it. I was going to go to Harvard Law. I remember being in 6th and 7th grade and wearing my navy Harvard sweatshirt all the time. The Harvard ‘H’ was a red plaid which I thought was very sophisticated. Then when I was a sophomore in high school, I joined this program for students interested in government and law. I had to take classes every week, and at the end, I had to take a test. If we passed we were able to be judges and lawyers or something like that. I remember being bored to tears in those classes. I wasn’t even disappointed when I didn’t pass the test. I knew after that experience that being a lawyer was definitely not creative enough for me.

When I was in high school, I was going to be an actress! Oh Yes! I wasn’t even going to attend college, I told my parents I was moving to Hollywood and the next time they saw me would be in a movie theater. Thankfully my wonderful parents talked me out of that and talked me into going to college. They should have seen it coming. I would write plays and get the neighborhood kids to act in them. I even had my own radio show. It started around 8/9pm in the evening. Every episode was taped. The audience was me and my sister and if we heard footprints coming towards our bedroom door we would pretend we were asleep, but as soon as the parental units walked away, the show would start again! I was the interview and interviewee. I made up all the commercials, I sang all the songs… It was a one woman show with a one person audience (my sister). ha! I was in the Drama Club. I acted in the plays at our community theater. I was even in a commercial when I was 17. My mom would take me to movie auditions in Kansas City. I acted in several film student projects. I dyed my hair blond to be like Marilyn Monroe. I watched old black and white films and studied their moves and the way they talked! Oh, how I adore old Hollywood. I would still choose to dress and act like a 1940′s starlet….

I spent time wanting to be a fashion designer too. I used to draw out clothing designs to the best of my ability, drawing is not my strongest artistic ability. Then when I realized I had to learn how to sew, I decided that I would just be a stunning dresser instead! I still love clothes and if I have some dollars left over after developing film, I always spent it on clothes or accessories! I especially love vintage clothing. Always have, always will.

The most interesting career choice I declared was when I was 8 years old. I used to hang out in my bedroom with my National Geographic magazines and a dictionary because I had no idea what most of the articles were about and would pour through the pages, dreaming of visiting every single location in the magazine. I told my mom I wanted to be a photographer when I grew up. AND! Do you know what she told me!!!!??? That photography wasn’t a real job. I swear to you, that until I was 17 or 18, I had NO IDEA how photographs were taken or who took them. I remember taking my first photo in Taormina, Italy. I still remember the wood oven smells and the cobble streets lined with criss-crossing strands of lights… it was a cool night and I took a photo of my family. I remember the spark that lit up inside of me. I knew something amazing was happening. I received my first camera when I was in 6th grade. I consistently broke cameras, year after year after year… and continued to receive them for birthday’s and Christmas. When I was 18, I took all my birthday money and money I had saved and bought my first real camera! A professional Nikon camera! It was the most gorgeous camera in the world! …and then I went to college for photography… and when I graduated I was bored and picked up a gorgeous wooden teak pinhole camera and that was the end of that… after that moment, I was a pinhole photographer!

phew… my childhood dreams…. always involved creativity and fame. I have wanted to be famous since the minute I was born! Not just locally famous, world famous! I would say that was my ultimate childhood dream. It didn’t matter what I was scheming, it always involved being world famous!