my description:
A blue file box is open, showing labeled dividers (Auto, Money, Garden, Home, Family). A card is showing from the Auto section with a picture of a green car. In front of the box are other index cards with images of a suburban home, a baby carriage, and a family (mom, dad and three kids) standing on top of the world.
This is the 50's style "American Dream" of having it all. It seems incomplete to my eyes (where's the Career section? or the Friends?), but it is quite recognizable as the traditional idea of what so many of us were raised to see our ultimate goal of perfection.
What's nifty, though, is that it's a file box, not a bound book... if this is not your dream, switch out the dividers for the ones that make sense to you... if a card no longer shows your goal or life purpose, pull it out and replace it with one that does.
A lot of these 'recipes' were probably passed down... they've got sentimental value because they were what your grandmother cherished, and maybe we hang onto them for the sake of her memory - but that doesn't mean you have to cook them up. (I'm not ever making boiled egg tomato aspic either, thanks!) This speaks to me of the subconscious 'dreams' we have... the goals we're supposed to want that we sometimes aim for instinctively... or feel guilty when we don't.
But the World is about our own world.. its where we dance to our own tune, not any one else's. I like that this card reminds me to check my own vision of success to make sure it's not out of date or leftovers of someone else's dream.
Today was my daughter's 19th birthday.. in so many ways my children really are my world... but one by one they are growing up and I'll be filing them away into a different place in my world and letting new things come to the forefront. And it occurs to me to wonder for a bit what dreams I'm passing on that are really mine and not appropriate for them. What they need from me is the file box and lots of cards to write their own path. And maybe one or two recipes that are a bit old-fashioned but offer good comfort food memories.
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