Dreamer's Portfolio

  Ever since I was a little “pink” girl, I’ve been a glittery dreamer.  I loved horses with a wild

obsession, and still do to this 30^th year.  When I was little, horses ran wild in my room.  You could hear Breyer horses and other plastic hoofs galloping across “Green Carpet Prairie” making their way to “Bookshelf Mountains”.   I can also remember driving in the Michigan country and I would always yell, “Horses!”  To some people, they aren’t important, but they stir my “Mustang spirit”.  That spirit still lives within me.  It’s like Secretariat at the gate waiting to pounce when the gate flies open.  I used to be timid and shy, but a dreamer soul was inside, growing.  I am now a 30 year old woman, brave and strong.  The timidity wakes on the dust behind my mare-like spirit.  I’m running the race, wishing and hoping for dreams to come true.  This is my dreamer portfolio…

When I was about sixteen, I took English riding lessons.  Of course, my dad thought I was a natural.  I’d tack my strong steed and trot around the sooty ring.  I trusted the buckskin work-horse beneath my chaps.  We had an understanding, a trustworthy contract.  Take care of me and I will honor you.  Dually, let’s ride into the sunny field.  We could feel each other's breaths.  Our hearts were compiled into one as we budded into a canter.  Trot, canter, trot, walk.  Good job, Dually, my friend.  The sun is setting over Michigan Oaks.  To the red barn we’d walk.  The lesson was at a country dusk end.  To some, horses are fearsome giants, but I felt safe and a “saddle-like” comfort.  I felt free as a maple leaf on the meadow breeze.  With my black Dublin boots in the silver stirrups, I’d look straight ahead.  Post, post, post.  Let’s trot Dually, to daydreams beyond.  “Dad, I want to be in the Olympics.”  I think I want to be an Equestrian rider.       

My dad and I would have deep conversations under lamplight.  Red words of the Bible would set an apple glow.  We would search books and chapters for Leviathan and other intrigues.  “Dad, where do you think the Ark of the Covenant is?”  “Dad, how big was the ark”.  “Dad, were there queens in the Bible?”  Question after question delve into the night.  He knew my love for horses grew rampant.  I mean, who doesn’t?  With that daddy knowledge, he dog-eared scripture in Job about the horse.  “Brandy, it even talks about a unicorn in the Bible.”  Really?  How much more is there in the Bible to explore?  Mysteries set me on archeologist fire!  I was ready that night to trek the sands of Egypt.  I was ready to carve pottery out of Jerusalem land.  I think I want to be an archeologist…

“Brandy, go get ready for ballet class.” My mom would tell me every Wednesday.  I’d run upstairs, slip on my leotard and shimmy on my tights.  We’d get to class and I’d slip on the icing, my pink ballet shoes.  Five, six, seven, eight…plie.  I grasped the ballet bar, my seven year old hands stretching into the air.  I twirled out of the dance room for 13 years.  I then looked in the mirror and pirouetted into a twenty year old ballerina.  When I danced ballet, I felt graceful and calm as a sailboat gliding on the waves.  I may have not tried on pointe shoes, but with my dreamer’s mind, I thought I could spin on my toes.  “Dad, I want to go to Julliard.”  I think I want to be a prima ballerina.

I had many dreams and still do.  The call for Ireland tugs like a tugboat at my heart.  I listen to Irish music and dance and jig around the house.  Brody and Shiloh, my dogs, are an observant audience.  Green runs through my veins.  Shamrocks grow around my doorstep.  I want to run through the emerald hills and lay in the grass and look up at the “lucky” clouds.  My Irish heritage froths in me like a Guinness beer.  Aye!  God-willing I’ll walk the rocky paths and overlook the Atlantic.  On a plane, to Ireland I want to go.

God says He will give us the desires of our hearts.  That is His hope for us, our presents he puts under the Christmas tree.  My dreams are wonderers, sojourners.  I’m an adventurer, deep thinker, with a writer’s mind.  I get affected to my core, my senses polish.  My heart dreams every day and every stellar midnight.  My portfolio is full of bubbles and stars.  As Cinderella said, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”