(Authors note; listening to the song written about while reading, is highly encouraged)
I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve learned more of love
By wondering where the wind blows”
The first time I heard this song, I knew I would write about it. I was that little boy, staring out the window and wondering where the wind would blow me. I don’t know your story, but I will give you a little bit of mine. There have been chapters in my life that brought me experiences that I never dreamt of living, but I did. They would not have happened, if it hadn’t been for daydreams. Little dreams and big ones, there are so many things I didn’t plan to accomplish and yet I did. So many things I shouldn’t have been able to do, yet I did and so I daydream… for a time I was a farmhand, making barely enough money to feed my family and for a time I was a vice president. They both brought me joy and they both took their toll.
If it hadn’t been for daydreams
Over the last few years, I have managed to slide past the mainstreams and find my way into that river flowing free. I have found such a cool groove in my life. I have a partner who is my favorite person in the world, and she makes me a good person just because she chooses me. I hope you can find your favorite person in life; it makes all the daydreaming worthwhile.
I work with the most amazing people at your neighborhood grocery store. We ring up your groceries every day. I love these people, their hearts, their drive, and the fact that they keep coming back. They are what makes the universe beautiful. Every time you walk through our line, there is a chance that magic will happen, I have seen it so many times. We are a place where you can be left to your thoughts or you can have a conversation that gives you hope, maybe I can even give you some of my joy. Afterall it is where you get your food to stay alive… right?
When you are wandering through those thoughts and sorting out who you are and what to do with that… learn to create so you can leave your imprint.
Every single human being can create, every single one of us can. Defining how you create is up to you, it can never be defined by the person sitting next to you. It might be possible that at some point in your life the playfulness just washed away. Take a minute to stare out the window, daydreaming can help you find that little kid again. Be a daydreamer and create, leave your imprint, it is your gift to the universe. Smile at it and dream.
I bet you’re wondering where the time goes
And beyond the flashing lights
It feels strange to think the grass grows slowly”
If you’re on the fifteenth floor or the forty-sixth floor wondering where the time went. Just stop for a moment and have a daydream, you can fly away from that place that confines your hours each day, you can fly… and then you can breathe. It won’t change anything you didn’t already know but it could give you hope.
You are a part of the tapestry of the universe and without your thread, it is incomplete. To have hope you must find joy in the wonder of who you are. There is not, nor will there ever be, another you. Leaving your imprint will bring you joy.
Do you wonder where the time goes? Do you dance through the moss and the fog of your daydreams? Did you soar above everything or are you slogging through the mire of a pit full of worry?
“All the birds you never heard
All the words you’d say to her”
All the things you thought that mattered, turn into things that never really did. Truth will keep slithering around your fingers until you stop grasping for it and then it resolves, and you know the truth. Most of us wait too long to listen to the birds and we wait until it is too late to say all those words we should have said. Daring to daydream can help unlock that vision you have for you; it can help you say the things you need to say.
Oh, I wander where I would be if I hadn’t dared to daydream.
Did you find hope over these last two years? Did you see peace or just think about it? We have been loading up your groceries this whole time, smiling and asking how your day is. Everyone has had a shit two years, but here we are. You, the one who walks through my line at your neighborhood grocery store. I am interested in your story and how you are. We all have unique things we give the universe and I want you to know what yours is.
I never knew where the river would lead me, I never knew where I would end up, but I found this cool groove of walking through each day realizing that I have some joy to give and I daydream, it helps me stay in that river, flowing free.
“Do you wonder where you’d be
If you’d ever dared to daydream?
Oh I wonder where I’d be
If it hadn’t been for daydreams”
Roo Panes was the second artist I wrote about on this blogging adventure. Three years ago, yes, all the way in the way back of May 2019. I wrote about his song, Soldier of Hope. Andrew “Roo” Panes is one of my favorite lyricists, I am truly humbled by this man’s ability to bring hope through his prose. “Start small, grow tall… have the heart of a giant but know you’re a man. Start small, grow tall.” His music has given me a glimpse of myself and allowed me to sit and cry and then get up and find my groove. I didn’t know him at all when I wrote that post in 2019, but I know him better now. He sings with his heart and writes a lyric that will tickle the fabric of the universe, this is magic folks, this is magic.
Do you wonder where you would be? I did, as I listened to this song. The improbable, bumbling, tirade of jilted paths my life has wandered, has enriched me, I am who I am because of this bizarre walk I have taken. If I have learned anything, I have learned the value of being creative, leaving my imprint. For me it is writing, it is playing music and it is the joy I give to you as you walk through my checkout line. All the birds you never heard, because you were too busy talking or too busy listening to something shallow and short. Creating breathes life, find out what you create, and then do it. It is you and it is real, even if you daydream it…
Think I will go daydream a bit…
Learning, listening, and growing
A Connoisseur's Lullaby 