Peggy Lee and my life

Years ago, Peggy Lee sang a song, Is That All There Is. I know, who the fuck is Peggy Lee. That song was one of my mother’s favorites. Because my mother was an unknown artist, an unpublished writer, and a musician without an audience, I thought she was cynical to like a song like that.  But as I get older and deeper into how life and most all dreams and hopes, though sweet, dissolve like sugar in water, I’m beginning to think just like her.

We have such high hopes when it comes to the one life we get to live on this earth and sometimes, after even the grandest and most exciting experiences, I wonder, is that all there is.

Living the dream, the subject at hand over on Betsy Lerner’s blog today, is a pretty lofty prize. In my entire life I’ve heard only one person say they are living their dream, my daughter on her first day walking to class at the college she considered her dream-school. The path she took to get there was monumental, that she succeeded was, and is, huge.

“Do you know how lucky you are to be able to say that you are living your dream,” I said to her, “because people live their whole lives without being able to utter those words?” Through happy-tears she said she understood and I believe she did.

I’m always scanning the horizon for the next best thing, the next hope, the next dream. Like blowing on a candle I dare not verbalize it because once the smoke is gone and the room is dark...is that all there is?