All that we see or seem/ is but a dream within a dream...

WINTER comes in upstate New York whether you like it or not. It does not discriminate. It buries the rich and poor and middle-class folks like us in snow like you would not believe. It drives many out of town quickly. Those who stay are True Believers in the power of the area.

My parents were True Believers, unfortunately. Good people, simple people. Their ancestors had settled upstate and never really left.

Thus days like January when I was in sixth grade. 11 degrees, a foot and a half of snow on the ground, no school. Girly boy I was even back then (I had been crossdressing in my house for two years at the time), I would be devoting the entire day to practicing my ballet for my recital with the other private-lessons students.

As I put on some light classical music, threw on a leotard and tights, I heard a great ruckus. My twin older brothers Will and Mike seemed bent on destroying the basement. A basketball hoop mounted to an old door was Ground Zero for vicious dunks, and two basketball-loving sons were doing their best to bring down the house in a not-that-figurative way.

I slouched down to the basement and implored them to keep it down.

“You know, Sam,” Will said, patting me on the shoulder. “I’d love to, but I don’t want to.” Quick-witted even in the eighth grade.

“Just try!” I whimpered. I turned around and headed for the stairs.

“Sam, come here.” Mike situated me under the basket. I knew full well what was coming next. I played along.

I soon found myself on the ground while Will and Mike celebrated maniacally another dunk, this one over me. I’d become so used to it by now, I picked myself up, straightened my hair, and dusted myself off.

“You guys see my tutu?” I asked them as they resumed their bizarre escapades.

“Not my problem, princess,” Mike dismissed. I bristled and went to find my skirt. I would need it in my recital.

“Why do you guys do this so often?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” they responded in unison.

“I mean dunking and stuff. When I’m in a ballet recital I don’t just practice showy moves. I carefully work on every part of my routine so everything is perfect.”

Everything got very quiet. That frightened me. There was no better way to tell that my brothers were about to teach their younger brother (I wasn’t there yet) a life lesson. They were very much like preachers, in that they always had some wisdom to impart and they definitely wanted you to know when they were imparting it.

“You have a dream, Sam?” Will asked.

I was thinking of how to respond to that when Mike cut me off.

“Well, Sam, we have The Dream.” He almost spat the words “The Dream.” I was caught off guard.

“What’s that?” I perched myself in a chair and listened.

“It’s very simple,” Will began.

“We’re down by 3 in the state championship with four or five seconds left, or something like that. Mike sets a screen and I roll around it. I shovel it back out to him, and...”

Mike continued “Bam! We’re tied. Just like that! We plunge into overtime. We get an early lead, but they come back! It’s us by two when all of the sudden...”

“They hit a three, and we need a big play! Time’s running down when all of a sudden...”

“Will breaks to the hoop! I feed him over the middle and he slams home a monstrous dunk - and he gets fouled...”

“I nail my two foul shots, and Mike blocks a tying three-pointer! We win!”

My two brothers were going crazy. They’d clearly ran through this scenarios ten million times before. It was adorable in a way. I smiled.

“So Sam, what’s your dream?”

It was a highly philosophical question. Keep in mind I was only in sixth grade at the time. I had several dreams. Which one was I going to tell my brothers? They would undoubtedly bring it up again. They were always doing stuff like that, moralizing.

I went back and forth between several childhood longings. To be Clara in a Nutcracker production was high on the list. I also wanted to be a cheerleader. Then there was the one girly dream I told no one about, which I briefly considered revealing but quickly reneged on. Finally, I settled on one I came up with off the top of my head.

“My dream,” I stuttered, “is to be the first girl you run into when you achieve yours.”

Will and Mike beamed and resumed dunking violently. They seemed satisfied.

I was as well. The more I thought about it, the more I thought about how happy I would be if I could be there, with my brothers, when they accomplished their life goals. I took that thought and ran with it. I, Sam Ashburn, had a new dream.

---

“Wow. I’d forgotten all about that.”

My brother Will rocked apprehensively back, and forth, and back, and forth again on the bench. He was still trying to process everything, and I’d just made it twenty times harder.

“The Dream. Wow. It’s all coming back now.”

He waded apprehensively on to the court of the Times Union Arena, where he’d three hours ago hit the winning shot in overtime to win the New York state championship. It was dark. Only a few solitary lights were on. The party was in the locker room. On the court, it was just Will.

Cheer captain and basketball captain, sister and brother, both recovering from the greatest moments of their lives. I’d come out of the girls’ locker room to search for my favorite bobby pin, which had fallen out in the wild celebration. I hadn’t anticipated finding my brother, nor had I foresaw having to relive one of my most vivid childhood memories.

I bent down, adjusted my skirt, and tied my shoes. When I came back up, Will looked like he was dancing on the court. Quickly, I deciphered the fact he was reenacting the Dream, exactly as I remembered it.

“Well, now what?” said a voice.

Mike limped onto the court from his hiding place in the tunnel, nursing a tweaked knee.

It seemed as if my brothers spoke their own language.

“The Dream, man,” Will said, welling up.

“The Dream.” I stood off to the side. My brothers were the happiest guys on Earth.

“So we’d better make a new dream.”

“Absolutely.”

“College next year, I suppose.”

“Let’s win the NCAA Tournament. What the hell.”

They did their little handshake. It then got very, very quiet. Uh-oh.

“You gotta make a new dream, Sam,” Mike said.

“I do?”

“Yeah, sis. You already accomplished yours.”

Memories: 180 minutes seemed like forever ago, me desperately cheering as we trailed 69-68 with the clock ticking down, yelling, screaming, Will shooting, and then screaming, dancing, laughter, with my girlfriends, with the team, and with my brothers. It occurred to me that I had indeed been the first girl to greet Will and Mike after the final buzzer sounded, just as I’d wished for that snowy weekday four years prior.

I did need a new dream. This time, though, I didn’t have to think alone.

“You were already Clara last year, so that’s out,” Will said thoughtfully.

“Obviously, you made it as a cheerleader,” Mike added.

“I guess that leaves only one,” Will said. “You wanna tell us?”

I thought for a moment. “I think I’ll keep this one to myself.”

“Fair enough, Samantha Ashburn,” Mike said, making me chuckle. It got very, very quiet again. Will paced slowly toward me and looked me in the eyes.

“Life is like three-point shooting,” he said. “Aim high and don’t be afraid.”

I resolved to apply this to my new dream.

It was a cold night in upstate New York, and sure enough, it was snowing like a madman. I had to change quickly, leaving my cheer makeup and hair intact as I swapped my uniform skirt for leggings and threw a black jacket over my “Hanson High” top. I scurried toward the bus. My cheer girlfriends were all chattering with one another, texting, flirting. I needed a moment with my thoughts. I sat alone, right behind my brothers.

I put my ear against the seat. Will and Mike were describing to their teammates “The Dream.”

“I swear to God, Trey, we predicted this years in advance...Yeah, some of the details were a little fuzzy, but we had overtime, and a winning shot! Come on, man, take a leap of faith!”

I almost laughed out loud. I shoved my face against the window and simply took in the snow. For only a moment, however.

“Is this seat taken?” said a voice.

It was Jared, the team manager. He was smiling, and I smiled politely back. I scooched over, made room, and continued watching the snow. Jared set to work doodling on a clipboard. He was drawing up plays or something.

I looked out the opposite bus window expecting to see more snow. What I wound up looking at was, upon further review, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Jared was just doodling on the clipboard, like I said, but he was smiling. He took joy in it. His baby blue eyes lit up. His handsome haircut seemed to have a little extra spike in it.

Suddenly, he dropped his marker. I reached down to grab it, so did he, and our hands met. I gave a little giggle, and I felt all tingly inside. I smiled my biggest smile into the window, praying Jared wouldn’t see the reflection, and took a deep breath.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he responded. Back to the clipboard in that weirdly adorable way.

I brushed a lock of hair out of my face, and smiled. “So about three-point shooting...”

The Dream.