What do you dream? —Carolyn R. Wilker

What did you dream as a child, as a youth, or as a young adult? Has that dream come true, or is it still on the way?

Today I began to read Exit Stage Right by fellow writer Jennifer Willcock. In it a student dreaming of a career in ballet goes for an audition at a prestigious school, despite anxiety whether she will be accepted. [No spoilers]

I thought about the fictional girl and how we follow our own dreams.

From the time I was a small girl, I’d wanted to be a teacher. My dreams may have come about because of a Sunday School teacher, as I learned new songs and heard new stories. Or it may have been inspired by my first teacher in my elementary school. Whatever it was, I saved my Sunday School papers and told my mother that I would need them because one day I would be a teacher.

  

Mom gave me a set of loose leaf rings to keep the Sunday School papers together. I believe I would also have kept my school notebooks indefinitely, as well, if I had been allowed to. The Sunday School story pages eventually disappeared and my school notebooks made their way to the attic of our farm house, to yellow with heat and age, and one day be tossed, but I was fiercely attached to my goal.

After confirmation at age 14, I eagerly accepted the challenge of teaching Sunday School, planning each lesson and teaching the students entrusted to me. I taught children of varying ages, and at summer camp too. It was as if my site-glass was permanently set on that goal.

Me with one of my Sunday School classes and fellow teacher

During my Grade 12 year at high school, I applied to college in the Early Childhood Education program and was accepted. I achieved my dream, teaching for several years—in co-op preschool, a city daycare centre—and then my own children as they came along. Eventually I made my way back to co-op preschool with my daughters, assisting the teacher and filling in when she couldn’t be there.

In time, I began to write, then began to teach again—adults this time—and curiously also to take up Toastmasters and storytelling, and writing stories for others, including children. My goal shifted, but I was still teaching and helping others learn.

 

Storyteller at Enabling Gardens in Guelph

Through it all, there has been one guiding principle—my faith in someone greater than I am. A force that has been with me since childhood, something I continue to learn about. In spite of this current time with the Covid-19 pandemic, no matter my emotions at the moment or my goals for another book, I know that Jesus walks with me each day. I can count on him.

Your dreams can take on different shapes as mine did. They can take you on adventures you never dreamed possible. Who walks with you and guides you in your dreams? I hope you found a guide with a reliable compass.

https://www.carolynwilker.ca/

Carolyn R. Wilker is an Ontario-based writer, editor and storyteller