La Lechera y Otras Cosas

I called home the day before Thanksgiving and my sister picked up. We caught up a little on life before she told me to hold on a second 'cause she had to do something. In the background I heard my Mom telling my brother, Alex, a story about a woman going to the market to buy milk. The story sounded eerily familiar. Then I remembered why. It was the same story that one of my colleagues had told me a few weeks earlier! When Tracee came back, I told her that I knew exactly what story Mom was telling Alex. Talk about a coincidence! And what's more, this proved that at one point the story had crossed the pond.

So, I will tell you a modified version: There once was a Milk maid walking to market in a city to sell her pot of milk. While wandering downhill, she daydreams about how she could sell the milk and buy a chicken, which then could lay lots of eggs, produce more chickens and sell more eggs to buy her own cow, pig, goat, etc. As she concentrates on her dream, she slips on a rock along the trail and spills her milk.

What's the moral of the story? Well, I guess, the moral is to be realistic, to pay attention to the here and now first, don't get caught up in dreaming. That has truth to it, but at the same time it discourages dreaming big. I like dreaming big. I wouldn't be in Spain if I hadn't dreamt it first. But I was also focused. Hasta luego.

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird, that cannot fly"-

-Langston Hughes