Here is a reflective poem by Jean Jones. For me, I seem to still explore those existential questions… what do I want? Who am I? How do I want to be remembered? One thing that occurred to me, as an insight, is what really matters. It’s love. Maybe that is unoriginal and not the most creative thing to say… but it is what I have come to realize and it is the primary focus right now in life. Being a good person… a good husband… a good friend.

So, here is Jean’s poem.

What did I want?

By Jean Jones

Sometimes it takes a dream to remind me
to remind me what I wanted my whole life.
Some people dream of being famous, some people dream of being rich.
I dreamt of being a writer, and even more so, a good one at that.
I dreamt of a writer whol lived perhaps, in New York,
perhaps a Beat Writer, like Burroughs, except he lived in Wilmington,
like I lived, and he knew the writers I knew, like Ron Bayes,
and Howard McCord,
and there he was on the radio, talking about another writer he knew,
a contemporary who went to school when I when to school,
who got a degree like I got a degree, and he was honoring her,
like I would like to be honored,
and it all came back to haunt me when I woke up:
In the end, I wanted to be a writer and famous,
not famous like American Idol,
but famous like William Burroughs,
so punk rocksters like Ian Curtis who I worshipped,
would pay homage to me like I wanted.
I thought of something I had read before
I went to bed:
from the Bible, of all things, and it opened a window to my heart: It said,
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart,”
and He did,
in a dream, in a reminder of what I always wanted: Not fame, not money,
but respect
as a writer, a desire many others I have known,
and some of them that I met also
got famous,
and made a career as a writer,
while others, like me, simply watched them as we
went on with our lives. . .