It was exactly 30 years ago, and I was 24. I had moved to Boston from Brazil, could barely speak English and had to support myself. I remember sitting by the window at the tiny shop in Harvard Square, where I worked earning minimum wage, barely making ends meet. Bills were piling up.
Almost in a state of desperation, not having at that young age the discernment to know that life has a tendency to take care of itself, I reached for a small notebook and decided to write down my dreams and aspirations in this journey called life. One by one, not quite in order of urgency, I spelled them out as they came to my mind. One thing was for sure, I did not want to struggle financially for long.
I wanted to have choices and be the one to help others. So, goal #6 was for prosperity__not the desire to have too much, but simply to have enough to share. I had always been creative, so it happened naturally that my hands became my tool. I made jewelry and sold it at street festivals and art fairs and worked hard, coming up with solutions for my immediate needs and obstacles.
And as my business grew and I became successful, life happened as it always does. I learned English (#8), I got my first car (#11), I got married (#2), and had kids (#4). And the little notebook was forgotten on a shelf, nestled among old books for a quarter of a century, until one day, as if the little thing had a desire to be held again, it made its way back to my fingers. I opened it with a little hesitation, almost in fear. I was speechless. The memory was almost too much to handle. Almost all of my goals had become reality spontaneously, as I was busy working at what I enjoyed, both simple ones and the complex ones. All except for # 12, which read: I want to pursue an education and graduate from Art School.And so, at that moment, an intense desire to learn took over me, an underlying feeling to express a deeper purpose, as if something that had been buried needed to come to surface and unfold. And today here I am, a student at the Art Institute of Dallas! Only now the camera is an extension of my hand and the viewfinder helps me frame the way I see the world.
