Hello, Friends
What are You Dreaming?
Though I was not “Dreaming of a White Christmas” as the song goes, we woke up to three inches of snow, on top of ice, this morning.
There are daytime dreams as well as nighttime dreams. When I was a teen-ager living on our Missouri farm helping take care of the cows and sheep, I used to look down the hill at a yellow wheat field which had green woods on each side of it, and daydream.
I imagined the field was the stage, with the forest of trees as the green curtains. I would pretend my life was on the stage and dream about what I might be doing as an adult.
Now that I am retired and off the stage, I don’t have any Oscars sitting on my shelf but I do have wonderful memories.
Among them are the times that I travelled with Toshiko Nonaka San around Japan to encourage the AP leaders who had just heard about our program and were beginning to start AP groups.
One time we visited Ms. Fumiyo Miyauchi who was an AP leader in Hokkaido. The snow depth there was unbelievable! On our way back to Fukuoka we stopped by the Sapporo Snow Festival and enjoyed the fantastic ice carvings.
These days when I am sleeping, my mind seems to take bits and pieces of all my life experiences, the people whom I have met, places I have been, and fashions them into interesting dreams. I usually wake up feeling refreshed and happy to have seen my friends, and sometimes my family members, again.
It just occurred to me the other day that now that I am 76, I have spent exactly half my life in Japan and half in the U.S. Most of my dreams are set in Japan, I guess since those were my young/middle adult years.
It is important for children and young people to daydream about their futures, and to consider all the wonderful possibilities that life might hold. Let’s encourage them to think with imagination and with boldness.
As we enter this New Year of 2014, my wish is that your daytime dreams will come true, and that your nighttime dreams will be pleasant.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS.
June Seat, Founder & Friend, APJapan
No comments:
Post a Comment