Of dreams and reality

As usual, I did my random read on my Facebook news feeds today. And I stumbled upon this line in a piece of article.

"You need to let your dreams change your reality; don’t let your reality changes your dreams. " 

As I am reading this line, many things seem to be running through my mind. It's nothing special, let alone being profound. Nevertheless, it's such a simple fact that we usually overlook or that we conveniently choose to use the latter as an excuse for the former. 

It has been a good 4 years since the day I hopped onto a plane to fly from KLIA to Heathrow. So many things have changed since the day I dreamed of coming to the UK, till the moment I feel heavy-hearted to leave this country. 

This line resonates very much with me because the exposure, the experience and the perspective that I am having right now, are pretty much a manifestation of many small, little dreams. Those small dreams are like the 400+ tiny bridges in Venice, which connect me from one place to another. 

And, many of those journeys and detours that I have made, are not plans that I have outlined before I came here. All of them happened in a pretty random manner, looking back in hindsight. 

Back in 2010, I didn't even know whether I would survive my time here in Imperial, and now I am few weeks away from leaving this institution. 

The people and the incidents that occurred to me are like stamps given by the border officers on your passport when you are travelling across the countries. 

An indelible mark of rewards for the decisions that I took, that was once backed by so much fears and one "you only live once" thought. 

You have to move across the boundaries, to get to another places.There's no way you can change your reality by talking about dreams. You can only change it by dreaming of changing it.  

Before I came here, the reality that I once had, is so real that you hardly even believe that you are able to do what you have been dreaming all day long. 

Thinking of going back to the reality I once had is not terrifying, but it feels strange whenever I start to think about it. It's like going back to home, but it has a tinge of distant feeling towards my own home. 

Maybe, reality and dream, after all, are at different sides of the same coin, that you need to turn over once in a while to not let your dream slip away, thinking that the coin has only one side that is valuable to your life. 

The Tales of the Desert

When I was younger, my mum told me about the stories of Aladdin and the Magic Carpet, Alibaba and the 40 thieves, as well as the smart, little girl who managed to tell a story to the king for 1001 nights.

As I grew up, I got a chance to read the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author. I read about snake charmers, fortune tellers with orbs, gypsies and many other mysterious characters that form part of my childhood experience.

The tales of the desert thus began.

So, it started with a camel. At first, I thought that the 'ship of the desert' would give you the ride of your life, like a pirate ship that sails across the Caribbean, just like how Captain Jack Sparrow did it. Instead, riding on a camel that kept on bumping, to get deep into the desert was kind of a pain in the ass, both literally and figuratively.

Well, it's still a ride of your life anyway.

Looking at the vast desert, I got excited. Sitting at the sand dunes, counting the stars. The sky was magical, full of stars and constellations. I started counting them, then I realised that it's better to just leave them alone. 

Ibrahim, the stargazer came. He told me about the Big Dipper and Small Dipper, the Draco (dragon), which consists of 25 stars and the Scorpio. Since young, I have always wanted to get a telescope, but living in a town with light pollution calls off the whole idea. So, I read the stories of constellations from books instead, and get to know how the Scorpio fights with Orion in the sky and hence they never appear together in the night sky.

We shared stories. I shared my Greek mythology and he shared his wisdom on stars. The hours went by, and he told me that they normally forget the hours in the desert. Living your life without counting the hours, and just follow the stars.

I also met a person who sold carpets. I asked him 'why is carpet so important to you guys?'

He told me that there are 2 versions of  the stories. One, is that it represents a book or a diary to them. They put the messages or wisdom that they want to tell on a carpet. Or it could also be a condensed memory, to preserve what you have experienced on a carpet. 

The other one is about the Moroccan girls. They use the carpets as a welcoming gesture, to give a warm hospitality to the guests that come to their houses. At times, it could also be a silent protest. If you see a camel on the carpet, it might mean that the girl is complaining that even camels have more freedom than them. 

I also met the snake charmers and the fortune tellers with cards in the market. Just like those Arabic tales, you feel a mixture of skepticism and curiosity, in the lifestyle of these people. But those depictions of stealing your money with black magic are not true, maybe there are, but I haven't met any of them. I only gave them some dirhams to snap some pictures. 

Sometimes, I do have this wild dream that one day, my experience could become one of the Tales of the Desert. You know that type that you carry on a camel and walk across the dunes, and spread it to other people in the oasis. 

Or it could be a story that people string them together behind a group of stars in a night sky, far away from the Earth, and travels in the speed of light to another galaxy. After a lightyear or so, the generations to come will listen to this story, like how I listened to my bedtime stories from my mum.

Either way, I am happy to see that the 12-year-old me, is watching the sky in awe, while lying on the sand, bare-footed, but with a mind full of imaginations.