CHASING THE DREAM

© Debbie Kruger 1999

So you emerge from some schmalzty movie that you know, you just know, is the story of your life, and your companion says that Hollywood movies are full of crap and nothing like that ever happens in real life.

But you know better. At least I do.

The fact that I'm a romantic and easily manipulated — I'll cry at NRMA ads — does not preclude the possibility that art does sometimes imitate life. If Robin Wright-Penn could find a message in a bottle and then, using her wits, chutzpah and romantic beliefs, find herself in Kevin Costner's arms, then maybe what I had done was not as foolish as my mother insisted.

It was Meg Ryan who really got me thinking, several years ago, when she heard the voice of a forlorn, widowered Tom Hanks on the radio and knew, just knew, that she was meant to be with him. After chasing him back and forth across the United States without the courage to actually confront him about this knowledge, finally she met her destiny atop the Empire State Building, when Tom, simply exhausted from all those sleepless nights in Seattle, saw her long blonde locks and dewy demeanour and he, too, knew that he had found his true love.

I already believed that one should follow one's heart in the pursuit of true love, and Meg was a handy ally, but it was Robin, in Message in a Bottle, who confirmed it for me.

Did fate not place that bottle on the beach directly in her path so that she could, using her professional research skills, reconstruct the life of this hero and track him down to his yacht? And when she saw that the author of those messages was rugged, handsome, tragic and maybe a little pliable, or at least susceptible to her svelte charms, why wouldn't she believe that, her manipulations aside, they were meant, just meant to be together?

So here's my story. I knew of this musician and sometime actor in Los Angeles whose renown was limited to a mainly cult following that knew very little about him due to his disdain for the media and his lack of commercial success in recent years. He was mainly known by association — he dated this famous singer and that beautiful model; he wrote songs with that legendary supergroup and acted in those movies. His songs were melancholy and his eyes betrayed a pain deep inside. Even better than all of that, a small anecdote on the internet about his rescue of a stray dog meant he was probably a canine-loving soul, and that was all I needed to know, just know, that we were meant to be together.

But how to engineer a meeting, so he could see me for himself, and know that I was his true love?

Hey, I'm a journalist, I write about music. And hey, I'm going to be in Los Angeles on a business vacation. I wondered if I could interview him.

Fate and good fortune placed someone in my path with whom I became friendly on that trip and who just happened to know all the musicians in that crowd. Do you think he'd let me interview him? I asked my new friend. Well, he's very private, you know, just lives up in the hills with his dogs, doesn't see many people.

His dogs??!!! See? I knew we were meant for each other.

My friend called the musician on my behalf, and after a week of umming and ahhing, the musician spoke to me on the phone and agreed to a preliminary meeting, to check me out, and then decide if he wanted to subject himself to an interview.

I knew this was my chance. Make or break. I arrived at the designated meeting place with my tape recorder and photos of my dog. My musician arrived, rugged and handsome, an aged but still faithful representation of the man on those old album covers, looked me over, liked what he saw, invited me to sit down for some lunch, started chatting. And then I showed him the photos of my dog.

"Awww!!!" he exclaimed. "What a darlin'! Okay, you're in. You're part of my inner circle now."

But it wasn't just a dog thing. Sure, when we got to his house in the Hollywood Hills later on, his dogs fell in love with me instantly (just as Kevin's dad, Paul Newman, fell for Robin). But there was bonding at a deeper level. We spent days and nights in each other's company, exchanging stories, life experiences, hopes and beliefs, dreams and disappointments.

Of course I didn't tell him that I knew, just knew, it was our destiny, nor that I tracked him down somewhat deviously to fulfill that destiny. What does it matter how we got together, as long as we did? The fact is we found each other, two single dog-loving souls who might never have crossed paths were it not for the focus and determination of a woman chasing her dream.

I did the interview, of course. And after I left Los Angeles we stayed in touch for a while. But no, I'm not writing this from his Hollywood Hills abode, our dogs at my feet while he writes songs about me in the next room. It didn't work out, even when I returned to Los Angeles in the hope that it would. But hey, it didn't work out for Robin and Kevin, either. At least my guy didn't drown, although sometimes I think it's a fate he thoroughly deserves.

No, only Meg and Tom got to live happily ever after. But it's not the end result that matters, I decided. It's that if you believe somebody out there is absolutely right for you, then chase that person and that dream. Even if your mother tells you it won't work out.

And when you come home and admit that maybe your mother was right, you can always go to the movies and live vicariously through Meg and Tom. Or follow their next lead and start an email relationship...