Chasing the dreams - regular life or absurd passion?

I am a believer in dreams. Not the nightmares and unconscious meaningless (seemingly!) early morning REM sleep dreams (they help me find my trouble spots) ... but broad day-light conscious dreaming like "I wish I were" kind. I believe day-dreaming in the only way to have a future ... Future is not a place you go to, but a place you are creating is something I tend to believe in ... So I talk utter nonsense - for a rationalist or normal human - when I say I cant do something if I havent dreamt about it. If I can dream it, I am pretty sure I can do it - not in an arrogant tone - but in a scared by real life experience tone ... At about late twenties and early thirties I really completely bought into the idea that the only things we dont get in our life are those which we didnt have the time or reason to dream about ... Even worse (or better?!) is that all god damn dreams come god damn true - even the very impossible kind ... I dont want to say we have the intuition for our future for the fear of being considered a total rubbish person, but I would like to say, our wish our hope gives us extraordinary energy to persevere and move ... The power of attitude comes from the mushiest feelings over the dreams - even the silliest kinds ...

All this should be a good thing right? But many many times it does feel very scary for me in real life. It is as if I think a dream is impossible and then I start running towards it, at a point I find myself ridiculously mad pursuing something obviously impossible or non existent but I do it anyway just for the kick of it, with all good heart to see failure at any point. I have failed utterly miserably in many important aspects in life. But in many other aspects I see suddenly the dream starts chasing me or so it seems. Suddenly this impossible thing is not just becoming possible but just is running madly towards me - to the extent that it is scary and makes me get into a Siddhartha mode of "do I really want it? why did I ever want it?" and all that opposite nonsense.
 Most of the time I find myself incapable of handling the reality when dreams come true - I find myself sufficiently unprepared and hence never get the full benefit of it, but merely float around awestruck.

When Prax was so disappointed with me not having the enthusiasm for Canada - all that I could tell him was "I dont know man, I am not against it, but I dont see myself there, I cant visualize, I dont have a dream - may be I have become a really boring middle aged person - but truly I dont have the dream or the persuasive wish within me ..." He used to feel so bitter and sad. He would go with a "sigh" ...
Then one day I told him "Okay there is just one thing I am sure I can see only in Canada. That would be an aurora. I would really love to see that. That is a dream I can build may be. It would be nice to see it. Scary to think of going to Manitoba or such god forsaken place, but definitely a kind of ridiculously impossible but I wish I was standing and watching an aurora is a dream that sounds interesting enough" He responded "appaadah atleast something!" Aurora was the only thing, the only bridge that connected my dream to his, in the greatest agree to disagree arguments we have had. My wishlist for Canada never grew more than aurora for some reason - it was a ridiculously impossible dream interesting enough to cling on to especially since I didnt understand the how and what of it much ... If I were single I would pack my bag and go camp in Antarctica I dont care. I would have loved the challenge or the adventure. With prax in hand adventure would be awesome. But I was a mother. For the move of Canada, I was only getting scared that jobless moneyless immigration with toddlers is dangerous - so I was applying for jobs. I had become mundane. Utterly. When I saw my boss on skype for the interview - from India, I knew I wanted to work with her. She gave me all the energy to take off - after a year of COLD hesistance. There were other push factors too, but she was a great pull factor. I was obviously shocked when I learnt I wasnt short listed and I was already in Canada. I tried standing in other unviersity campuses to get a feel - where did I come - where is that feeling - why did I lose it ... One very frustrated evening in a jobless state I emailed her back casually that I really wished for the job and that I am just wondering if there was any hopes. She called me Thursday and asked me to come in on Tuesday. I got it. I love the fact that she is my boss - utterly until now and am sure in future too. I greatly admire her personality.

When I was informed about this workshop at Yukon, all that I thought was there is noway I can leave the kids with Prax for four days. But then I saw a clipping on aurora possibility on weather channel and that sparked an interest other than the professional progress potential ... Inspite of all the flu and eventually getting a red eye myself the day I am flying out, I clung to the idea of watching an aurora to keep myself positive. At 9:30pm it was snowing and I called the aurora tour guy and asked him "Is there any hope that the sky would clear up tonight? Is there anybody else coming?" My boss had warned me this is wild-wild-west - dont go alone ... the stranger on the phone with european accent gave a realistic reply "the forecast is partly cloudy and auroras are never a promise, but there are lots of people coming in tonight" ... At -30C after an hour on ice on poor shoes and poorer socks, my toes were burning in frost and I was sure I will loose them - I shamelessly stripped off my socks and opened my barefoot to fire and saw my toes glistening in red-brown ...
I started running between the fire and the lake ice and beautiful star lit sky every 5 minutes ... At one point I held my feet with socks above fire and my socks got burnt. Now my naked feet was over my poor shoes at -30C - was getting more and more miserable when the auroras eventually showed up at 11pm. It gave various patterns and lots of excitements until 2am. But at about 1 am, I was starting to really worry if I will loose my toes! There was an old couple from Nevada visiting and the lady was frustrated that she cant tell a star from a cloud and how the heck to know an aurora. I introduced her the magic of Orion verbally sitting around the fire and provoked her to go find it in the sky. She said "I can never see anything" pessimistically as she walked out - I promised I will walk out when my feet was warm to confirm what she is seeing. When I went she has spotted it and she couldnt believe she did. I showed her gemini and she couldnt believe it was that obvious or that easy. Then I turned her around to show the polestar and she went mad happy - I pointed her how cassiopiea and big dipper stood around it ... Pole star was way up high  - almost overhead and cassiopeia and orion were HUUUGGGEEE ... She got hyper happy "really, really, now I know the pole star, the star that all navigators used, my goodness" Her happiness felt absolutely awesome.
Then came the green auroras. She had paid $1600 for a long trip and I had paid $125 for a single night ... Almost everybody else was there for a few nights and everybody was amazed that I got darn lucky - because they all told me that was the best night for auroras ... So there I was with frozen burning toes among total strangers connecting in mysterious enthusiasm ... under the aurora - the one and only (impossible) dream I had for Canada. I havent been here even six months yet!

It made me wonder if I am absurdly passionate! If I am missing out on life running behind these stupid day-dreams ... Stood there and wondered if indeed aurora was that beautiful. It wasnt. Honestly it wasnt. It was nothing more pretty than sun shining through a cloud in a dusk sky. Green yes. May be I was blind. May be I was in denial. Surely reality doesnt look as great as any photo. Auroras can be taken one and only with long exposures. Long exposures capture lot more details than what eyes can catch ... So I dont know ... I bought a book on aurora on my way back. At the airport gift shop it was a tamil lady at the counter! :) Didnt have the time to talk - just bought two flutes for the kids and left.

How absurdly I chase? When I parked my car after the doctor visit for my red-eye the airport pick up shuttle was at the door. I told the driver, I just have to bring the bag down, but I hadnt even packed - didnt think the doctor was going to take three hours. I packed in exactly 5 minutes and madly ran to the shuttle. At vancouver I didnt have the time to pick up the luggage and then get the boarding pass - I had 5 minutes for the boarding pass when I was running down the corridor and saw baggage hasnt come on the carousel yet... I ran to the counter checked in my hand luggage got the boarding pass, took an escape route back to the carousel-baggage claim, collected my bag and turned it into hand luggage and rushed through the security to make it to the flight. ( took the latest and tightest combination so that I max my time with kids and min my time traveling!) 1 am arrival. 8am-4pm workshop.6pm dinner meet. 7pm-10pm think tank. 11pm-2am aurora watch. 8am-4pm workshop. Took a flight back at 6pm. All with a developing red-eye (was becoming a pirate!) and flu hanging like a dagger over my head. I snored sitting up and dozing off everywhere! :) Took a day off and bored the heck out of prax talking out "I dont know what I want to do with life, I wonder if I am just running madly without finding out how I want to live my life" ... Then back to normal work routine today!