My dream
Realise
that you won’t get this day back.
Don’t wait for nicer
weather, don’t wait for your number to be called.
Do it today.
I am standing in a queue in
Glebe.
In another twenty minutes,
I will be doing my UMAT exam. In another twenty minutes, I
will be on the first step to fulfilling my dream. A dream in
which I would fly through the exam, my colours behind me, to
lift my wings into a medical degree, and to specialize in
psychiatry. But even as I stood there, staring at the sky, I
felt that perhaps – just maybe – that this was a dream that
was not going to begin becoming real today.
Dreams are never quite that
simple.
In the last forty minutes
of the exam, I knew. I knew that today would not be my day.
My year, for that matter. But I have next year, and the
next, and another thirty dollars or so.
I have a second chance for
this ambition, for this…this dream.
Dreams are very personal,
as one may expect, and I have always been struck by the
insistently nostalgic nature of my own.
When I was a child I lived
in the Hunter Valley,
Maitland. It was – to my innocent eye – a childhood idyll;
mulberry picking every year, green fields and kite-flying,
as well as hot crispy chips once a week because my parents
owned a takeaway shop.
And there was
this one Spring – one beautiful, bright Spring – in which
our garden, a place of mostly concrete and brittle white
styrofoam boxes– was visited by frogs. Little jade beads,
which one could lever onto a chopstick with care and carry
about. The amphibians were babies to my mind’s eye, tiny and
docile, pleasantly moist and calm in the face of our wave of
childlike enthusiasm. You watched their flanks carefully and
could spot the tiny thudding heartbeat, as small and
delicate as the ruby bloom inside a pomegranate.
After that
Spring, the frogs disappeared, and as I grew older, I became
acutely aware of the condition of the environment. I
realized that the Hunter
River,
which was not ten minutes walk from my home, was suddenly
suffering from a depletion in biodiversity. I would never be
visited by frogs again. These delicate creatures, so
sensitive to any kind of climatic change, would have been
among the first to die.
I am now
seventeen and live a two-minute walk away from the Georges
River,
Liverpool.
Choked with
garbage and waterweed, the Georges does not even support
fish worthy of being eaten, let alone being clean enough to
accommodate frogs.
Knowing this
has cultivated within me a deep desire. Though it may appear
frivolous and lukewarm, one of my dreams is to see my local
water systems restored, so that local scientists need not
worry about large turbidity measurements or the escalating
values of biological oxygen demand. I not only want to
change the local waterways; I want to change the attitude of
the community, so that they show that they care about what
is happening to the environment in which they live.
So that one
day, I can return to a river system, and see tadpoles near
the water’s edge.
My dreams are
not centred around my hopes of becoming a full-fledged
psychiatrist, nor a best-selling fiction author. I have
considered eventually writing HSC Chemistry textbooks and
becoming a tutor but I don’t dream about these
things.
My mother has taught me
that dreams do not come easy. Her life has taught her that
much.
I am not a Vietnamese
immigrant. I am not pro-Communist, nor am I a ‘Southie’. I
have never lived in a refugee camp. I have never had to hide
from pirates. I am an Australian, home born and bred. Even
so, my mother gives voice to these experiences. Her history
is more than something from a textbook. It has shaped her.
It was through these experiences that my mother’s own dreams
come to light. She has fulfilled most of them, I think. She
has her house, her work, her family, a nice figure and two
beautiful moggy cats. Her last dream is to see me fulfill
mine.
My mother was a refugee and
she gave me a chance. A chance to live very differently from
the way she had. My mother brought me into this world and
from Day One provided me with everything I would ever need.
In primary school, this came in the form of Vegemite
sandwiches and chocolate eggs. In high school – and during
my HSC – it has come in the form of textbooks and a lifetime
supply of stationery and caffeine. But most importantly, it
has come in the form of love: no matter how you change,
you are still my daughter.
My greatest fear is not
appreciating my mother until it is too late.
A week ago, I finished my
HSC trials. Euphoric with freedom and high with post-test
relief, I was desperate to go out with my friends, and I
never expected my mother to refuse me. But she did, asking
me one pointed question: ‘Are you good enough to stop
studying yet?’
Admittedly, the hackles
rose and my temper snapped like a frozen wire. Arguing
ensued, crowded with statements typical of our generational
divide (‘You don’t understand/You don’t know what I’ve been
through’).
Later, I was shocked,
bewildered and ashamed to find my mother in tears. I
realised that despite spending my whole life with her, my
understanding of her was, to a certain extent, limited. I
took her hand, I said sorry. I asked her what had made her
so upset. She made two statements.
‘You are growing up. I
can’t be close to you anymore.’
I started crying then, and
made a promise to myself. I didn’t want to lose touch with
my mother, not ever. I promised never to distance myself
away from her ever again.
According to the Bible, one
must Honour thy Mother and Father. One of my deepest dreams
and most honest desires is to adhere to this commandment.
‘My only wish for you is
success and happiness in life.’
I kissed her on the cheek.
Next year, I am going to
have another chance at my dreams.
I am going to be on the
train to Glebe, with my mother’s love behind me.
And my dreams not far
away. |
