A Raisin in the Sun?

So yesterday my family and I had a great time using our imaginations.  We decided after watching the movie TinkerBell and the Great Fairy Rescue that Sunday we would make fairy houses of our own.  After our morning breakfast of homemade buttermilk pancakes (a great recipe made by yours truly) and my usual Sunday morning ablutions (namely mowing the lawn - what's left of it), I gathered together twigs, bark, leaves and a few pieces of wood that we could use for our fairy houses.

Now, I know there are many types of fairy houses that use recycled materials.  Tink's house for instance looks like this; 

Ours, however, we decided to go more organic and constructed our fairy houses completely out of "natural materials" that we had in the yard or were from nature (hence the cut wood) instead of using "found objects".

Here is Sarah's fairy house (its a bit hidden) which she dubbed a Zen/Meditative Fairy House;

And William's (pay special note to the flower chandelier and the all natural furnishings);

And James' - he decided he wanted to go with something a little more solid to withstand the elements and I'm pretty sure this one will, what you can't see in this photo is that the roof is removable in case the fairies make a mess and we have to clean up after them;

Although, I do have to admit James' is not completely "all natural" as we did use hot glue to keep everything together.  But we spent the afternoon creating our little fairy habitats and figuring out exactly where they needed to be placed for optimum privacy but still close enough that they could visit their fairy friends.  William kept popping out every half hour or so to see if any fairies had taken up residence in the house, even after it got dark!  This morning he was worried whether or not the houses made it through the storm last night.  He is too cute!!!!  It was their dream to build these fairy houses and there you go - a dream realized!

However, I'm starting to face a harsh reality about another dream and that's the dream of our Cross Country ride for Sunrise Day Camp.  As I've written about in other postings, this is a sort of Mitzvah Project (in the true sense) for my family and me.  Something that we would do for the good of others and in the process really make us think about our own lives as we give to others.  However I'm not so sure its going to happen - at least for the summer of 2011.  We haven't really been getting much in the way of offers of sponsors and we don't know at what point we should cut our losses and then just try to start figuring the logistics for the summer of 2012.

Back in the day (which if you happen follow Bike Snob NYC you'll recognize the neat high-tech graphic below) I used to teach English to grades 9 and 10 and for a brief time grade 12 AP English Literature.

(About as accurate a time scale as any other although I woudl think "back in the day would be closer to the posterior end of the dachsund of time)

Anyway, one of my favorite poems from the 9th grade poetry curriculum was "Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes.  I would always use this as part of the unit and then later in the year when we actually studied A Raisin in the Sun the students would have a reference point since we had discussed it and what it means to defer a dream.  What?  You don't remember it?  Well, to refresh your own memory of "back in the day" (or "the Olden Days" for some of you) here it is;

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Well, right now I'm wondering what will happen to this dream if we defer it?  Will it just dry up like a raisin in the sun?  Willl it crust and sugar over?  Will it just explode?  I don't know.  What I do know is that we'll probably need about $10,000 in sponsorship (not donations) for us to be able to do this.  That's on top of the $5,000 we'll probably have to pay out of pocket.  Just like in "the olden days" you had to "prime the pump" to get the well to start producing water we need an influx of backing sponsors to help us get our project started.

I really wish we had the money ourselves.  I wish we could just say "let's do it" and damn the consequences.  But we can't.  As life changing as I think this journey might be for my entire family, not to mention for the ten campers it would fund if we reached our goal, I can't see a way that we can pay for it ourselves.  As a teacher (even in Syosset) I don't make enough money that I can just pull out the old charge card and fund this effort myself.  We need some guardian angels to step in but we're not really sure how to find them.

Yes, I know I could probably just do it on my own.  Just fly out to San Francisco and riding back self-supported.  It is an option but not one that I would relish the thought of.  You see, this is not just about me, its about the family.  They have supported me in all that I've done and to take this away from the kids would break my heart - not to mention theirs.  Oh, they'd get over it and they would probably be "okay" with meeting me down in Virginia and spending a week in D.C. and then slowly making our way up the coastline.  But it wouldn't be the same as seeing a third of the country and helping daddy help the children with cancer.

So I don't know.  If there are any of you who do read this blog with regularity please, please, please encourage others to do so and if any of you have ideas as to how I can somehow find the sponsors that would help us - please direct them to us.  I'd love to be able to do this ride this summer and not put it off another year.  My mishap with the door has only proven to remind me of how fragile we are and how in an instant things can change.

	Sting - Fragile .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

And yet, hope waxes eternally optimistic and as such I will be riding tomorrow in the rain to remind me that should we somehow find the funds to be able to complete this Mitzvah I have to find a way to be in shape for it.

Stay well and I hope to see you on the road!