Planting Dreams: Happy April!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
I don’t just
love April.
I adore
April.
As much as,
even, caffeine, good wine and Hugo Boss shirts.
This means
major props for April.
April marks
that moment of the year – especially in Michigan – when I can finally walk
outside without screaming, “I’m going to lose an earlobe!”
It’s that
time when I can inhale deeply and breathe in that memorable scent of spring. I
can close my eyes and hear the birds chirp, the earth reawaken.
I also love
spring, especially this year, because it marks an important anniversary in my
life.
Some eight
years ago, I quit my job to pursue my passion.
At the time,
I had just finished my first memoir, America’s Boy, after waking for
years at 4:30 in the morning while working fulltime and living in the city. I
had just landed an agent. My book was within a few months of being published.
And, Gary and I had just quit our high-paying jobs with benefits and moved 400
miles to take up residence in a knotty-pine cottage in the woods where I was
going to try to become the offspring of Erma Bombeck, David Sedaris and Henry
David Thoreau.
We didn’t
just leap off a bridge. We leapt without parachutes.
The landing
hurt.
Two weeks
after uprooting our world and taking the biggest risks of our lives – and just
weeks before America’s Boy was set to publish – my editor quit to take a
job at another publishing house.
I was alone
in the literary ocean without a paddle. Alone in the woods without a compass.
Although my
first book was critically acclaimed, it came and went quickly, like a Kevin
Costner movie.
I didn’t
know if I would write another book, sell another book, survive. Actually, I
didn’t know if I could even write another book. That’s how shaken I was.
So, Gary
took me into our garden one April afternoon and pointed at his just-blooming
tulips, flowers of peach, red, purple, and yellow, swaying like crayons in the
wind.
“I planted
these bulbs last fall,” he said, bending down to touch the tender petals. “I
didn’t know if they all would bloom, but I was compelled to do the work, to
take that risk. And just look at the result. It was worth all the effort and
belief, wasn’t it?”
I remember
plucking a creamy peach tulip and putting it in a McCoy vase on my writing desk
that crisp, sunny April day. I made a promise to myself, staring at the tulip:
You will achieve your dream, Wade, if you just believe and work hard. I
also promised myself that if I could make it five years, then I could make it
the rest of my life as a writer.
I started in
earnest that April day and finished my second memoir a few months later. It
sold just after that to a new editor and publishing house.
It is now
eight years – and a total of five books – later. It hasn’t always been easy.
But dreams never are.
I am now working
on my first novel. A new dreams begins. One also filled with great risk and
uncertainty.
I am again
wandering into the unknown, just like many of the heroes and heroines from our
favorite books. Most of our beloved protagonists from our most beloved books
take great risks in their lives. They follow their dreams. They risk their
hearts. They understand that life is all about pursuing passion, be it in
romance or career.
That, too,
is a theme for the women in my first novel: Risks they took, ones they didn’t,
and the impact that had on their lives.
I continue
to take great risks in my writing and life, and I always will. And even when
things get thorny, I still consider life to be abloom.
I continue
to work hard and believe even harder, though I may not always be able to see
the petals when my face is to the ground.
But it comes
down to believing in your dreams – and hard work – if you want life’s garden to
be ablaze in color.
This April, I
urge you all to remember to take a moment to stop, breathe in
the spring air, and believe in your dreams.
Gardeners
aren’t the only ones who can begin to see the fruits of their labor in April.
We all can.
But we must first
plant the seeds.
posted by Wade Rouse at
4:31 PM
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