At ten years old, my mother knew that she wanted to open her own ballet school someday.
Thirty years later, that's exactly what she did. In the winding road that led to her dance school, she wrote greeting cards, sold textbooks for publishing houses, dabbled in radio, and dipped her toes in college admissions. She kept up with her own ballet classes, and found performance opportunities each time she moved to a new city.
When she was nearing forty, she switched tracks and threw herself into her dream. The dance school started small, of course, with only nine students, but it grew to weekly enrollment of 480. For decades, my mother, and the teachers she hired, brought artistry to hundreds of lives.
As a child at the studio, I absorbed lessons beyond ballet. I learned the value of hard work, of course, and I discovered the joy of artistic expression. But, most importantly, I saw how my mother turned her dream into a reality. She doesn't regret the meandering path that brought her to the dance school. All of her experiences made her a wiser business owner.
Of course, there are many examples of people who pursue their goals without detours. As a teenager, my father knew he wanted to be a journalist, and he never deviated from that dream. He worked his way up through regional and national newspapers, culminating in almost forty years at the Boston Globe. His stories have taken him on international travels and deep into New England history. I carry our mutual appreciation of words with me while I write, and his example taught me that when work aligns with a deep-rooted passion, it doesn't feel like work at all.
As I've said before, I knew I wanted to be an author when I was six years old. My path was unshakably clear to me: major in creative writing and publish books. Simple!
Life had other plans, however. I discovered that I wanted to dive as deeply as I could into my literature courses in college. So, I majored in English instead. When I had the chance to run a seminar one day, I fell in love with guiding literary discussions. So, I went to graduate school for education and spent five years in the classroom, teaching teenagers how to analyze books. When my son was born, I chose to stay at home with him, reveling in the realization of my other lifelong dream: motherhood.
I still improvised scenes in my head. I still read. But my author dream took a backseat. If you've been here long enough, you probably already know this story. You know that it took a while for me to find my way back to writing.
Whenever doubt threatens to creep in, I think of my mother. I think of how she was almost forty when she opened her dance school. Her detours weren't mistakes. They added to her life experiences and helped her dream flourish when she finally pursued it. My literature classes, my teaching, my stay-at-home parenting... they all brought me to this chapter in my life. They all exist within me and enhance my perspective.
It's okay for paths to wind their way to the end goal. Dreams will find their time, as long as we don't extinguish them.
Here a glimpse of me at 13 years old, dancing on the beach that inspired my novel
(and probably writing a story in my head).
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