only in dreams

A conversation that I overheard reminded me of how fragile dreams are.

Our poetic minds paint these transcendent landscapes of kingdoms and conquests that are all ours. We rise from our slumber renewed at the simple thought of something that we want, that we desire. Hope of a better future - of being someone better, beyond ourselves - has a way of making hurricanes of us all, as long as we believe it. Even the most complacent of souls will stand for something they hold dear. And having that hope means sacrifice.

This past fall, I left complacency. I left behind happiness and a place - both physically and mentally - that I could have stayed and been alright with. But, in this life, being "alright" should never be enough. Each fleeting breath is more precious than the last. And the moments that define us, those are the moments that are written in the silence between those fragile breaths and dreams.

Dare to be greater than you believe that you can. Do not be afraid of the grandeur of your own dreams, for those are merely images of the vast potential within our own souls.

I leave you with this, a personal driving phrase from the pen of Dylan Thomas,

"Do not go gentle into that good night".

from here to the next moment

A sensitive heart - one that every heartbeat treads softly upon each passing moment - is a heaven and hell of existence. All too often I have lived, suspended, between the intertwined passageways of someone else's feelings, falling beyond the depths of pain that they feel or even expected to feel, and, conversely, soaring a bit too high upon moments fixed with glass ceilings. Those days are past.

I sit here tonight nostalgically recalling glimpses of my past through a musical tide of songs - songs that understood those moments better than I did. One that sticks out is Sowing Season by Brand New. Within the strains of Jesse Lacey's voice, I can see precise moments and re-experience those exact feelings. The night drive in the mountains, shouting unlearned lyrics into each curve of the fleeting highway, feeling the sense of rejection drown in guitar riffs and yelled choruses - the healing power of song is immeasurable.

I won't bore you with the details of this story, but I thought I would share a song that, even in it's simplest affirming parts, was freeing to my soul. May music meet you where you are.

Is it in you now?
To watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop then build them up with worn out tools