Make My Dream Come Alive

When you're a lover of music, inspiration is never really that far away. For me, music is almost always in the background of my life. We listen to music more than we watch TV in our house. Our favorite thing about a Sunday with no obligations is brewing a cup of fresh coffee and setting the TV to play music all day. We usually start with some jazz or soft rock, and then throughout the day we'll switch to various playlists. Most of the afternoon, we've been listening to a playlist my husband created, called Laurie. We have overlapping music taste, but if we were a Venn diagram, the overlapping section seems to have gotten smaller than the outside non-shared music than it ever was before. That's ok. Paul and I have been married a long time, and we have many memories attached to our shared love of music. There continue to be shared albums and songs, but we each have developed a taste for other kinds of music, separately as well. He created this playlist off his music library so when we're together, either home or in the car, we can listen to it and both enjoy the music. I think one of the things I love most, is he put songs I may not even know, that he knows I would like based on knowing me and my music taste so well. He's a really good guy. Have I mentioned that before?

Today, after grocery shopping and doing a quick blog post, I did some baking while researching on my computer in between steps. I've been trying to get back into the swing of writing. I've fallen behind on this blog by several days, and I'm determined to get myself back on track. What I found, was I'd read or write something briefly, then close the laptop. Then I'd open it and do it again. It's hard to tell whether I'm avoiding it or I just can't think of anything. I hate when people, especially my students, say they can't think of anything to write about. It bugs me that today it has been me.

Then, as they often do, Tesla came up in the rotation. This time it was a favorite of mine. "Caught Up In a Dream," was the first release off the long awaited Into the Now album that came out after a ten year hiatus of recording by the band. I was slightly distracted by something I was reading, and I stopped and closed my eyes to listen. The song is really about the wish for peace and harmony on earth, but today it struck me differently. A good song, like a good poem, means whatever it means to the receiver. 

I'm caught up in a dream, I'm gonna wish for it all
No one's gonna tell me how, no way, this is my dream now
I'm caught up in what seems simply impossible

I ain't gonna change a thing, no way, it's my dream

In a time of busy-ness and internal chaos, I'm reminded my dreams are my own. No one can take them from me unless I allow them to. If someone stands in my way, it's in my own power to move past them and find my way. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves the direct path isn't the only path. We hold the power to make our dreams come true, and if we can't find a path perhaps it's an invitation to create our own.

What if...I close my eyes and everything will be alright
Here in my fantasy, living in harmony
Make my dream come alive

A random moment of calm, a few minutes to close my eyes, ground myself and visualize what I want, this is what I'm missing in my daily routine. I need to get back to meditation and mindfulness, of stillness and affirmation. Within chaos there is always calm, it's just harder to find. Maybe I'm not so much caught up in my dream as I am allowing it to remain dormant in the chaos. It's time to make my dream come alive, to get back to living in internal harmony.