No Place I’d Rather Be January 23, 2015

I don’t have this problem very often. While not always the most succinctly, I can usually find a way to describe most things. Yet today I struggle. Because where I come from there are no right words to describe this sound.

It was different than it was in those first few months when dear baby Carter would cry. Though it had a way of tearing at mom’s heart, we all came to understand it was simply his only means of communication then. Over time, he has developed a myriad of other ways to tell us all what’s going on in that curious little mind of his. So now when the crying happens, we know it’s really something bad. 

Especially when it’s more than your ordinary run-of-the-mill sleepy or hungry cry that does occasionally still happen. This was in a realm all its own. It was piercing. His little face was turning purple. And nothing (and I mean nothing) seemed to help. Except being in the arms of my dear forever mom, but even then the screaming continued.

Until it happened. Mom thought to cue up a familiar song on the music player and when those thoughtful notes entered the room I could almost see Carter’s body relax. He was still pretty upset about who knows what (mom thinks it was gas or something), but the crying was noticeably mitigated when the music started.

“Someday I wish I upon a star, wake up where the clouds are far behind me…where trouble melts like lemon drops high above the chimney top that’s where you’ll find me,” sings Hawaiian musician Isreal Kamakawiwo’Ole in a way only he could. “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. And the dreams that you dare to…really do come true.”

It’s our song, mom whispered into Carter’s ear as he snuggled his bright red, tear-soaked face into her chest. And I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I knew in that moment something it is hard to put into words. A mother’s love. From the ground up, it’s about as unconditional as it gets.

I knew it when the crying first started. I knew it even as the crying ramped back up a bit as mom fiddled with the gadget to get the song to play again. I knew it when it quieted down. And when he snuggled his mommy. There is no place either of them would rather be.

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Once In A Lullaby November 18, 2014

I’ve noticed it since the beginning. And I’m sure it’s probably nothing special or unique to babies. But since day one I’ve observed that my dear baby Carter has a profoundly noticeable appreciation for music. When he was really tiny, mom used to hum to him or rock him in his room with his favorite CD of soothing music. It has a way of calming him pretty well most of the time.

Ever since he started pulling his little self up on things to stand, he does this little jig when a song he likes or recognizes comes on the television or radio. And now that he’s started toddling around, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

So I suppose I shouldn’t necessarily have been surprised when it happened this morning. Magic. From the ground up, it has a way of coming to life when the right song comes into the walls of our forever home. Today it happened in the spirited words of a familiar and beloved song.

“Someday I wish I upon a star, wake up where the clouds are far behind me…where trouble melts like lemon drops high above the chimney top that’s where you’ll find me,” sings Hawaiian musician Isreal Kamakawiwo’Ole in a way only he could. “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. And the dreams that you dare to…really do come true.”

My forever mom has always loved this song, and I know she’s heard it since dear Carter was born, but something happened today that could only be described as an unforgettable moment. The first few chords hit the air and she swooped him up out of his highchair and they danced together like no one was watching. She snuggled him and kissed his chubby little cheeks and told him she loved him and wants him to always remember this as their song. And she cried. A lot.

While I never like to see her cry, I know these were good tears. Healing tears. Loving tears. Heck, if I could I would have been crying right along with her. Because it was really something special between a mother and her son.

It’s not a moment he’ll remember, no matter how much he may grow to appreciate music in his lifetime. But it was special to mom. And it was special to me.

All I could do in that moment was soak it up and think to myself “what a wonderful world.”

My Castle in the Air March 25, 2013

I’ve noticed a trend in popular literature lately. While The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Matched series are all brilliantly written, society is writing itself a morbidly bleak portrait for the future I can’t say I enjoy. I would much prefer to dig into the daydreams I have, in spite of the nonsense they might contain.

I realized today I spend a good deal of my day dreaming. I dream sleeping, but I also daydream in vivid images that bring joy to my heart. Today I dreamed of what my utopia would look like, and I have to admit it looked nothing like the dystopian future societies of District 12, Dauntless and The Society.

In my dream, I saw the sun and felt the warmth as I heard the faintest strumming of a familiar song humming through the breeze. All of my favorite people and canines are there, happy and well. And I finally was in the company of my friends in the blogosphere who I had only once known as Gravatar personalities from around the world. Laughter amongst all of these groups of loved ones echoed through the wind as the song hummed its way closer.

“Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly and the dreams that you dream of, dreams really do come true,” I hear Jason Castro croon. If dreams come true, I am one lucky dog because I dream often and I dream big. I dream in nonsense half the time, and I find humor in that. But imagination is a powerful tool for one’s relationship with his or her authentic self and I don’t intend to let mine go unused.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;” my favorite transcendentalist thinker Henry David Thoreau once said, “that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

My foundation is in my life choice to see the good in all people and things. I dream by living, and I live by dreaming. “It’s not what you look at that matters,” Thoreau said. “It’s what you see.” Forget the futuristic societies of popular literature. In my future, I see brilliant cloudless skies painted with bluebirds and smiling faces.