I'm starting something new on my blog -- posts by guest bloggers.
Today’s guest blogger is Stephanie Rae Pazicni. Stephanie is a speculative fiction writer and a member of ACFW and The Ragged Edge. Visit her blog at www.TheGlitterGlobe.blogspot.com.
Thank you, Norma, for having me here on n j hopcraft to share my thoughts on The American Dream. Luvin’ watching your travels around the country by bus as you research your next book! The giant rodent in the cowboy hat? Two thumbs up! That huge critter was someone’s American Dream! Go figure. It takes all flavors to make up an ice-cream truck, right? Speaking of The American Dream wouldn’t you say this little fella found his?
How do you define it? That American Dream: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Are you pursuing your dream? Your happiness? Some of my ancestors immigrated to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream in the 1880s. They left Bohemia - possibly to escape religious persecution - and became shopkeepers. There are old black and white photographs of their mercantile with horses and wagons and a Model T parked outside. They lost the shop during the Great Depression after extending credit to families in the area until their own resources were bankrupted.
Another branch of my family came over on the SS Friesland on September 16, 1906 – I know this thanks to the “Manifest of Alien Passengers” that is now available on-line. My great-grandmother had $3.25 in her pocket when she left Ellis Island. I never knew her, but I think I can safely say she made good on that bit of cash and grew her nest egg.
My own grandmother raised 14 children, on her own, and several grandchildren on top of that, including me. I doubt that was her dream, but it was her life, and she was very good at what she did. She could bake and cook like an executive chef, and you never saw a dirty pan in her tiny kitchen. She could iron a dozen 100% cotton dress shirts in less than four minutes.
After her husband left her with those children, she ironed those shirts for twenty-five cents each. Was that her dream? She never said, but I’d guess not; it was, however, her life. Gram was severely burned as a child, playing with matches when she was twelve years old. It took three years for the burns to heal so she never went back to school to get further than the sixth grade.
Yet despite the advanced education and degrees of her progeny, there was not one member of the family that she couldn’t slaughter in Scrabble; and even when I was a young married woman she could still pop the lid off a new jar of pickles when no one else could manage it. American Dream or not, the woman was accomplished.
As a young adult I dropped out of art school in lieu of business, abandoning my personal dream for cold reality. For many years after, I moved around the country, spending my days clad in business suits and fabulous pumps, and shuffling papers around my desk. I then raised a family and did my best to see that they were educated, and I helped found a small company that gets smaller and paler with each passing year in the current economy.
Was any of this my Dream? No. It was better. It is my life. You know that life? The one that happens while you do what you need to and maybe, if you are very blessed and persistent, you too will find the time to glance over now and then and realize that what you have isn’t what you dreamed of either because you could never have imagined the wild ride that is life. Did you ever notice that the founding fathers only mentioned the pursuit of happiness? I think that is because life is lived in the journey.
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