Dreams Don't Die. We Starve them by Not Feeding the Fire: Writing, Gardening, Dry Creek, Small Business, Whatever

It's been over a month since my last post.  Spring was short and sweet.  Unusually heavy winter snows demolished trees, leaving lots of debris to clean up, which put me behind schedule.  Now, Summer is here, coming on strong, and unlike last summer, I work, so I don't have 12 hour days to put into Dry Creek.  So, frantically playing catch-up, I just haven't had any time to blog.

And with each passing week, writing the next post becomes harder.  That's the way writing is, even at a basic craft level, like a blog, not to mention a poem, a play, or an essay.  Writer's block is always out there in the deep night waiting for you let the fire go out.  If you are not feeding the flames, it will slink in.

And when it does, there is only one thing to do.  Write.  Write when you don't know what to write about.  Write when you don't believe you have anything to say.  Write when images are but twigs, when ideas are green and moldy, when what reaches the page smokes and stinks and leaves you gagging.

If you don't, it's over.

Perhaps it is the same with anything.  Dreams don't die.  We starve them.  The wind is still there, now and then, but we quit feeding the fire.  When nothing takes off, we walk away.  Perhaps that is okay.  Sometimes a dream can kill you.  I don't necessarily believe in feeding the flame with your own flesh when no other fuel seems to be around.  Sometimes it's best to just start over.  But do we do it too soon?  Which dream do we devote our life too?

Will mine be Dry Creek?  I'm pretty sure I'm here to stay.  Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I've never been anywhere else.  But developing a public garden, a gallery, a gift shop and canning store on such a meager salary is not going to be easy.

Last week I drove around town very discouraged because this is the second summer and most of the yards in town bloom brighter then Dry Creek and I've been working at least four hours a day, every day except Saturday (when I work 12 hours straight at my job) and still it's nowhere close to being the type of place you'd pay to visit.  At my current rate of development, I'll be dead before Dry Creek is more then just a hobby.

I don't have a clue what to do.  So, I'll do what any writer knows must be done when he has no more belief in what he has to say--write anyway.  Garden anyway.  Plant, dig, build, create.

No stopping.  No analyzing, is this even sane?  Of course, it's not sane!   Creation, cosmos, the whole damn Big Bang.  It's insane!  Something out of nothing.  Billions and billions of stars, planets, sands, atoms, electrons.  Creation is beautiful.  But it's never sane.  Sanity is for the dead.  Dreams are for the wild-eyed lunatics, the holy men, God.

So, I'll plug along on, one tomato bush, one fence rail, one hanging basket at time believing against all probability you someday will want to visit Dry Creek, one of the most spectacular gardens in America.