Every Sunday for the past few weekends, I have attended Durham-based Nina Be’s yoga class that blends philosophy/physiology/spiritually all in one class at a yoga studio called Global Breath in Durham, North Carolina. The gratitude I feel at having a class to bring me back to the POINT is enough to bring me to tears. Her wisdom never ceases to blow my mind. So afterwards I was listening to a student tell her that he had all these ideas for yoga poses while lying on his mat. And I stood there looking for my shoes witnessing his dream. Not my dream, maybe not your dream, but his dream. And somehow it was so relieving. We don’t all have the same dream, and yet the existence of these animated, energy filled ideas in others, validates our own, proves to us their shared existence across humanity. They come seemingly out of nowhere, pushing us to bring them to life. Nobody can see them but us – or maybe some dream sharer we’ve never met across the country or world from us.
Our dreams can seem so obvious, so clear, is some ways making us feel lonely that we alone are experiencing them for the length of time they have not manifested. I can feel the texture of the fabric, see the shapes of tailored clothing on that powerful, curvy woman in our advertisement, experience the feeling of stepping into a Woman’s Atelier and Fit Lab where a small team of talented sewer, tailors, pattern makers, and techies are ushering women’s clothing into the 21st century, producing beautiful garments that expose the power of a woman of any shape or size (better late than never). I can imagine a day where we look at stilettos and pencil skirts the way we now look a corsets – fun and novel for dress-up but ludicrous in any other scenario. One day we will scoff at the idea of a woman’s movement being restricted by her apparel and accessories.
And so we can all but touch our dreams, and then must find a way to build them and, perhaps equally difficult, relax into the real space we inhabit now on our way to our dreams, which may be most of our lifetime. And sometimes these dreams are so big, we know we cannot accomplish them on our own. We know that as things stand in this precise moment, we cannot build our dream. That’s where FAITH comes in. Looming large, constantly challenging us to believe, to listen to the dream and know that it is possible, that life will move to help us make it happen as long as we keep chipping away at it. And that faith is no small task. The idea of relaxing into it can be truly terrifying.
An apt message on Duke campus on my bike ride home from our team meeting
And then something moves along our path that reminds us that our faith is well placed, that it is not just baseless optimism. In the most recent case for my work, the appearance of 3 extremely talented Duke professional students, with fantastic and extremely diverse backgrounds and experiences, who were moved by the company’s endeavor to lend a hand amidst their extremely full schedules. I was beginning to get information back from the beta-testing on the custom-made Riding Jackets, I did not have the experience nor the resources to pay to figure out how to build my company around these numbers, and a team of students appeared to help. There are still a seemingly infinite amount of things that need to happen to get from where I am to what I see in my dream, but little by little I am working to strengthen my faith muscle. To believe that if this miracle could happen like the generous contributions to raise money for the beta-testing, so will the others. This dream is in my head because it can and will come into being as long as I continue to commit myself to it.
So for readers out there building their dream – I believe in it. I know it is hard, in ways impossible to imagine if you’re not walking that path. That your dream exists, means you can do it. Have faith (such small words for an enormous task). Perhaps if we have faith together, our dream work will be that much more doable.
Thank you for supporting my dream and, on this Valentine’s Day, to our loved ones that make it possible.
Thank you to my partner, Drew Marticorena, for your love and support to help me make my dream possible.