Dream!

Dare to dream of your great success
- Mary Anne Radmacher

dare to dream of your great success.
become intimate with those things which
deeply motivate you and regularly work
toward the realization of that mission.

At 28 years I traveled out of the country. Alone. In London. My bed and breakfast was filled with accents from all over the world and my ear was not yet trained to the unique inflection spoken in the Queen’s English. My second day there I intended to purchase one ticket for LES MISERABLES (it had opened the October before). Between jet lag and my language challenge I accidentally purchased two.

It took some amount of negotiating to persuade the young intellectual from Germany to be my guest at that night’s performance. While he insisted that musicals were frivolous and a waste of time, he thriftily concurred that not using my second ticket would be a waste of money.

That night both our world views shifted. As Fantine wept over her lost love and life in I DREAMED A DREAM, the heart in my guest was breaking. I resolved: never to be so achingly in the grasp of regret. The music became my soundtrack for many years. I cannot speak of the standing of his life but I know that night he was the first to stand to his feet as the curtain began its close. Hands above his head he was weeping for the wonder. He saw that what he had thought was one thing (frivolous musicals) was something else entirely.

And so it was for Susan Boyle, an almost 48 year old English woman who’s never been kissed, and lives alone with her cat. As she competed on BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT the somewhat cynical judges balked as she answered Simon Cowell’s, “What’s the dream?” with, “I want to become a professional singer.” Who in the audience didn’t laugh?

Somewhat nervous, rather awkward and no apparent stitch of make up on her face she waited for the music to begin. She began to sing. The audience registered audible and visual surprise. Like my reluctant guest their assessment of one thing turned out to be something else entirely. As when any person is completely engaged with their passion, Susan transformed as I watched. Her dream enlivened her and took away any sense of nervousness.

As the audience stilled and returned from their leaping feet to their seats…I was reminded of the wisdom of George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans) who courageously embraced her dream and passion saying, “It is never too late to become who you might have been.” Said another way, “Continue to live toward your dream – the ultimate embrace of it will be worth your journey.”