Don't ever stop dreaming
Yesterday, I traded sun, beach, and a beautiful warm sea for a cold, gray sky and a pair of wet shoes. I still can't believe I did it. The constant winter overcast was reason enough to leave Canada and never look back. When I finally left, I’d bought a ticket to a never-ending summer on the coasts of Southeast Asia. Yet I am here in the cold again, and I couldn't be happier with my choice.
I arrived in Marseille this morning. Dressed in light pants and a summer shirt, flip-flops on my bare feet, I stepped out of the airport. Cold rain got under my collar and ran down my spine. I held my small backpack over my head and ran to the bus station. There I bought a ticket to Aix-en-Provence. My France chapter has finally begun after four years of waiting.
I could, perhaps, write about this weird obsession that I’ve been having with France. About the language, que j’adore complètement. Or the petit café I had this afternoon followed by a risotto served with the freshest baguette, as if it were the only way to serve risotto. But I’ll keep my message simple: don’t stop dreaming.
It's not about some bucket list with three hundred items in it. Nor New Year's resolutions that you regret telling everyone about. But a childish, almost feverish “What if one day I…” sort of dream. Something that you are even ashamed to dream of, perhaps because it's so silly or so trivial that you don't know why you should even bother. But you dream nonetheless simply because you can.
I remember my first such dream. Back in school, I watched Sean Penn's Into the Wild. I'd never wanted to go to Alaska. And it didn’t seem realistic, living on the opposite side of the world. But it had planted a seed in the back of my mind until more than ten years later I landed in Anchorage. And today, arriving in Aix, another lingering itch got scratched. I walked into a grocery store and listened to the radio that reminded me of my favorite Café Montréalais on Spotify. I strolled the narrow cobblestone streets and pretended I was the main character of a new episode of Dix pour cent, filmed in Provence for a reason known only to me. It was a dream. But then again, I was living it.
Be a fool. Dare to have foolish dreams. They might, after all, come true.