On Giving Myself Permission to Dream

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

In my dreams, I live a slow life filled with poetry, gardening, candles lit at sundown, thick wool sweaters pulled over my knees when it gets chilly, and a rice-paper hand-held fan to slowly rustle my hair back-and-forth when it’s warm. In this world, there is no social media, I’ve declared email bankruptcy and my loved ones know to call my phone if they need me instead of texting. I’ve done away with all group chats, text messages, and DMs—Zoom is a distant fever pitch nightmare. 

This is clearly a fantasy. I am posting this on the internet and will create cross posts to drive “engagement” on my social media counts. The only saving grace is that I didn’t allow ai to write an optimized version of my deepest emotions for this newsletter. I’ll let the robots try to predict the next most appropriate word to fill in the blank space some other time. 

And yet, I am living my dreams. Earlier this year I planned out my year setting metrics for measuring how successful I am at experiencing what matters to me. Some of these items are very tactical, like “feeling good” by keeping my “hemoglobin a1c between 5 and 5.6” or “being IRL” by reducing my time on my phone “by 25% in Q1 (success on the former, fail on the latter…I am literally writing this on my iPhone).  

Some of the goals are deeply spiritual, emotional and aspirational, like “get work out in the world” by self-publishing my poetry chapbook by the end of Q2. 

Dear reader, I did it. Over the past few months, I began curating a selection of my poetry from 2020-2022, collaborating with an editor and envisioning how to share it with you all. Then at the start of the month, came a magical email from longtime Inwood resident Gail Addiss inviting me to read at Bruce’s Garden Summer Reading Series—the first event since the pandemic. I immediately said yes and began laying out the pages and finding a printer.

Two weeks later, here I was holding a proof of the booklet outside arcoíris downtown on Lispenard. The energy that surged through me as I held that bundle of ink and paper was life-affirming. It’s proof that I’ve finally claimed my path and stopped waiting for permission. This is the life I’ve longed for—the life of a poet and writer, of me—a dream come true. Seeing posters of my face for the event in a neighborhood that once only knew me for my journalism cemented this feeling.

I’m spending a lot of time these days thinking about what it is I want to dream. How do I want to shape this life? What no longer serves and who am I now in this year of 2023? Being intentional about dreaming is an interesting concept. Daydreams and fantasies can be potent fodder for tapping into the emotional state I want to achieve, but it’s the intersection of fairy dust and pragmatic spreadsheet planning that yield magic in my life. Toss in some challenging life events beyond my control (more on that soon) to make the clock hands feel like they’re speeding up and it feels more important and potent to take aligned action that moves me toward my dreams.

Last night I attended a private community event for the arts at the United Palace, you know, home of the 2023 Tony’s. We sat on the roof with its panoramic view of the city, midtown’s skyline at a hazy distance, the sun melting behind the George Washington Bridge as the day closed. One of the poems in my chapbook celebrates that bridge that took me from one part of my life to the one I’m living now as a metaphor for growth, community and beauty—how the paths we take in life shape-shift before our eyes, how the linear paths we plan to take never lead us where we think we are going. As we sat in meditation on the roof—ambient sounds of the Mister Softee truck, starlings flying overhead, the rumbling of planes, surrounding us—I felt a calm fall over me. I am here living a dream, one of my own making that is filled with wonder, if I only allow it to happen to me, with me. 

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I hope you’ll join us for the reading at Bruce’s Garden on Tuesday, June 27 at 6:30 pm (reading starts after refreshments at 7 pm). I’ll read some of my work in English and Spanish, and would love to see you there. 🤍 I plan to sell copies (*😬) of the first run of this chapbook and donate part of the proceeds to Word Up Books, the only bookstore north of 155th Street. Price: $11.11.

*Judging by the pit in my stomach I’ll soon have to write about charging money for my writing. Coming to inbox near you…soon.