Making Dreams Come True

By Bettina R. Flores
From "Chiquita's Cocoon

As a child picking grapes, I say that although we worked hard, we never really got anywhere. Finishing one crop meant starting another. We were so busy working hard, bent and stooped over, it never occurred to us to stand up straight and look around for better opportunities. By settling for the first job we found, we eliminated any chance for better ones. Had we used our minds more and our backs less, we would have had many more opportunities available to us.

What a pity.

I was fortunate. I used my hot years under the grapevines to dream and picture. My self-conversations went like this: "I hate the heat and this dirty work. When I get older I'm going to work in an air-conditioned office and live in a big, cool house. I'm going to go to school and study so I won't have to work in the fields all my life. I'm going to marry a kind, generous man. He'll be an elegant dresser and have a briefcase."

Would you believe I married exactly such a man, who later became an attorney and turned out to be a clotheshorse? We get what we picture. Throughout my life, the many pictures I have held steady in my mind have materialized. They can and will for your, too.