I'm Wearing My Astronaut Shoes

“Today, I’m wearing my astronaut shoes.”

When I was entering first grade, my Mom was a teacher at my elementary school. I attended Badger Mountain Elementary School in Richland, Washington. My Dad was a newspaper editor at The Tri-City Herald. 

I took the bus to school. It was Dad’s responsibility to make sure I got my shoes and socks on real tight before walking to the bus stop. 

He would show me how to tie the knot and ask, “What kind of shoes are you wearing today?”

“Daddy, these are princess shoes!”

Or, maybe, “These are my astronaut shoes.” 

My Dad instilled in me at the very beginning of my explorative years that even if something was in my imagination, I could attain it as a goal or as a career or even a hobby. 

Imagination turns into dreams and dreams turned into stories.

Years later, in middle school and high school, while living in Southern California, Dad would drive me to school. I would proceed to tell him my dreams, my literal dreams from the night before, and my interpretations of them. 

“Daddy, I dream in color,” I would say. “There’s a regular cast, you know, like a sitcom, and sometimes there are guest stars.” Sometimes, there would be credits. 

As a 30-something, I still have an imagination, and I still have dreams. At this moment, the dreams I refer to are the ones in which date back to those early imaginative moments of being a princess, a construction worker was one, and an astronaut.

Each one of those childlike dreams involve something that unites all of us, the desire to create, the desire to learn, and the desire to really enjoy everything that we’re doing. 

These days my dreams are more universal and goal-oriented. Whether it is to write a screenplay, produce a documentary, volunteer for a charity, own a winery, or to just raise a wonderful family, they are my dreams. 

Dreams. 

They are about exploring unpaved paths, uneven roads, and in more profound moments, unjustified injustice. 

Today, I am wearing my astronaut shoes. What shoes are you wearing?