The Stuff of Dreams

The great odometer rolls over once again and we find ourselves in 2010. A nice even number, and the start of a new decade. It is time for celebration, a time to begin again.

Ryan Seacrest, co-host of "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" for the last five years, described the feeling of being in Times Square at midnight when the ball drops. "It's about the most unbelievable feeling you can ever have," he said in a recent Parade magazine interview. He's especially taken by "the look of happiness on everybody's faces. Whatever is bothering them, whatever personal nightmares or financial problems they're having, it all just escapes from everybody's faces at that one moment."

At just 34, Seacrest is one of the most successful talents in broadcasting. His other gigs include a morning radio show and American Idol, the most popular t.v. show in the U.S. As a child he dreamed of being a broadcaster like Dick Clark. "From the time I was 15 or 16 years old, every single thing I did, every day of my life, was to get closer to that dream."

Unlike Seacrest, many of us drift away from our childhood plans. Instead of traveling or writing or being an astronaut, we are too busy working and raising children, or taking care of our elderly parents. But then the ball drops, and it is January 1, and this could be the year that we finally get serious about some of those dreams.

*****

I have been incredibly unfocused in both my personal and professional life for the past few years. In an effort to get myself back on track, both mentally and physically, I joined the Y over the holidays.

I haven't received training on any of the equipment yet, so for now, I just run on Y's wooden track. It's on a balcony overlooking the basketball court, and you can glance down and watch players throwing free shots if you get bored. You have to go around 19 times for a mile. I usually keep count by repeating the lap number over and over in my head.

When I get there, someone is usually already on the track, and I just fall in place behind them. Walkers, inside lane; runners, outside lane. The other day when I arrived, an older man was running counter-clockwise around the track. Hey buddy, I wanted to say, you're going the wrong way. Instead, I decided to just join in. It felt funny at first, but eventually I was running counter-clockwise with ease. A few laps into it, I noticed a sign that clarified things for me:

The schedule made sense. It probably ensured a proper wearing-down of the track. But there is also both a mental and physical benefit in changing your direction, and breaking old patterns.

*****

Sometimes we put off the things we really want to do because we worry that we are being selfish, or because what we want to do involves some risk. For years, these two worries used to gang up on me everytime I made travel plans. I used to stress out that I would pick the "wrong" flight--the one that would crash. This fear followed a particularly frightening flight experience that ultimately ended up o.k. (For some reason, I always overlooked the "o.k.")

I sucked it up for visits to family, weddings, and funerals. But the fear led me to curtail what I felt were "unnecessary trips." As a result, I had put off visiting the place where I spent what were probably the two of the most idyllic years of my childhood: Newport Beach. My family had lived there when I was in third and fourth grade, and I had it so good. I was excelling in school and was, for the first time, popular. I had a fort in the bushes behind my house, a best friend, and a nearby canyon supposedly filled with arrowheads (I never found one but it was fun looking). I had a t.v. in my room and a babysitter who gave me all of her Barbie dolls. On top of that, day after day, there was the amazing California sunlight--so bright, with such sharp shadows.

Two years ago, I resolved to get over my fear of flying by taking more trips. Last year, I am happy to say, I was a relaxed flyer on our cross-country trip to California. I finally got back to Newport Beach. I found our old house, and was surprised to see that the walk to Eastbluff Elementary was not as far as I remembered. Winding through my old neighborhood streets, I could almost see myself as a nine-year-old, riding around on my pink, banana-seat bike with my best friend, Muir. I remembered all those endless sunny afternoons, when I had nowhere special to be.

We looked for my favorite old beach in Corona del Mar, following directions from my mom. When we got there, and I couldn't find a place to park or a way down to the beach, I began to question my mother's ability to remember directions from 30+ years ago. We kept driving. Eventually I saw an entrance to a beach parking lot. One look and I knew the beach wasn't the right one.

"The cliffs were bigger," I insisted to my family. Yet, as I said this, I worried that I'd gotten fooled once again by my memory. Things often take on such a dramatic scale when you are a child.

I got out of the car and asked for some help. A local told me to turn around and go back the place where my mother had directed me. "You just park on the street," he said. "When you get out, you'll see a path you can take to the beach."

We drove back and parked. We walked to the end of the street and saw a path that we had somehow missed when we were driving. As I neared the path, I looked down and saw the cove that I remembered. "That's it," I said, excitedly.

It was the perfect beach, surrounded by rugged cliffs and crashing surf. The afternoon sunlight glittered on the water.

What a thrill to spend a day again on my childhood beach. My kids played in the surf and looked for sea creatures in the tidal pools. I had a flashback when I saw a large boulder in the surf with a distinctive hole in the middle. I'd forgotten all about the rock but remembered it in an instant. I knew that it would still be there for many years after I was gone.

*****

May 2010 find you well, whether you are chasing your dreams, taking a wonderfully unnecessary trip, or doing whatever is the grown-up equivalent of riding on your banana seat bike with your best friend next to you, a long afternoon before you, and nowhere special to be.