On the Edge of a Dream

Drifting on the tail of a dream
Dancing on the edge of a song
Swimming in a sea of violet soft clouds
In the lavender stillness of dawn

The quiet of night does fade
As the first of the morning birds wake
From the spark of day shines a ray of hope
For this day is mine to make

Opportunity waits like a star
My heart its only voice
Do I reach out to grasp my destiny
This journey...my only choice

What If...

What if love was always stronger than fear? What if joy always won out over despair? What if I was really brave enough to live how I want to live? What if I wasn’t afraid to sing in the street or give a stranger a hug? What if I really didn’t care about money? What if I actually put other people first? What if I realized all the time how much power was in my hands to help others and acted on it? What I was able join with others from around the world to break down walls and unite with a dream?

What if this idea was brought to fruition…

What if I could travel around the world and ask people from all walks of life to finish the phrase, “What if…” Would our answers be shockingly similar? Do we all want the same things no matter our age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic condition?

I would like to find out.

Directional rant

I have always taken pride in the fact that I have a strong sense of direction. This is, of course, absurd. It’s like being proud of having blue eyes or being bilingual simply because you grew up in a household with parents of different ethnicity. A strong sense of direction is one of those things that you are just born with; something you have very little, if any control over. So, to be proud of this skill is silly. Yet, here I am proud nonetheless. Proud and annoyed…

Since moving to Sao Paulo, Brazil, my sense of direction has become slightly skewed, and I am utterly annoyed by this fact. I’m not quite sure if it is just one reason or if it is a compellation of many. My street, for instance, neither runs north-south or east-west. Rather it moves one way in a southwesterly direction. Therefore, I don’t have a direct N,S,E,W reference point; at least not one as easily identifiable as a street. Then, to make matters more complicated, none of the streets seem to follow the logical grid pattern that I am used to. They seem to tangle and collide at random points of intersection. Any the one ways… that’s enough to confuse the hell out of even the most competent of navigators. There is no rhyme or reason to the pattern of one ways here. You might think that every other block would be a logical layout, but no, the civil engineers of Sao Paulo prefer to wreak havoc on the would be drivers. There are even a number of streets that switch direction from one way to another with little other than a sign and the sight of oncoming traffic charging toward you to act as warning. Surprise!

Perhaps the buildings are to blame for the bulk of my confusion. In every other area where I have lived, I could always count on the sun traveling across the sky in its predictable east-west pattern. Yes, I know you book worms and astronomy geeks; it’s not directly east-west as it shifts slightly with the seasons, but you get the picture. Of course it does the same here in Sao Paulo, however, the sea of skyscrapers stretching from one end of the horizon to the next make trying to find the sun more like a game of hide-and-seek or peek-a-boo!

To sum it up, I guess I’ll just have to be more patient, and learn to trust the GPS. Thank God for Garmin!