“Into the great wide open Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open A rebel without a clue” -Tom Petty

If you follow my blog at all, you will notice Tom Petty references sprinkled throughout. The reason for this? His music just speaks to me-the simplicity, the complexity, the poetry of it. It embodies everything that is “America” in my mind-particularly Free Fallin’. It’s my “go to” when I want to roll the windows down and feel weightless for a few minutes. It has that uncanny ability to wash away all of my cares and just allow me to BE.

I feel like his words tap into my heart-the free spirited, rebellious, wandering soul of who I am inside-and allow me to escape the entrapments of the corporate world I feel suffocated by some days.

Do you guys know music that has that effect on you?  If so, you know that there is nothing like it. It’s so powerful it’s hard to put into words at times-and one of the greatest arts made by the hands of man.

His music also reminds me of the MTV age. I can’t even begin to fathom a guess of how many times I watched the video for ‘Dont Come Around Here No More’ as a kid. I love Alice in Wonderland so I was simultaneously delighted by it and scared shitless. I think the pendulum swung to the latter when Alice turned into a cake and they started eating her. Pretty sure someone was smoking some primo Mary J when they thought of that idea.

Speaking of which, who can forget Mary Jane’s Last Dance??? Nothing odd about picking up a corpse from the morgue and dancing for a bit!

I miss those MTV days. I loved when new videos came out almost as much as the songs themselves! So much has changed since then…

I feel like the news of Tom’s death, then the retraction of that statement, and now just uncertainty about his condition spurred me to write tonight. I grew up with his music and it feels like a part of my childhood is attached to those songs.

It’s been a Monday in all senses of the word. I woke up at 3:30am (fell asleep on the couch snuggling Cooper) with the tv blaring NBC breaking news about the mass shooting in Vegas-the largest mass shooting in modern American history. WHAT is wrong with people??? So many lives carelessley taken for seemingly no reason.

Nil. Zero. Zilch. It baffles my mind.

So today, in a nutshell, just makes no sense. So much makes no sense to me lately.

Hate. Distrust. Fear. Ignorance. Words that paint a pretty grim view of where we are currently as a nation. How to we move past this? What will it take for us to realize that tearing each other down is not the answer?

People rag on me at times for being “too positive” and always looking for the good in people. And yes, sometimes I do end up getting hurt/disappointed when people don’t live up to those expecations but I will always keep looking for the gold in people…even when they are covered in soot.

We all need to look for the gold in each other rather than exploiting each other’s weaknesses. Little by little, positive people CAN change the world if they band together and lift others who may not be able to muster the strength. I cling to the knowledge that there are others like me out there and that the road of life will eventually lead me to them.

“Some days are diamonds. Some days are rocks.”

Today may have been a rock but there will be many more diamonds out there. Maybe we all need to take time to consider what constitutes a “diamond” day.

To me, it’s one where the people of this country decide to try love on for size rather than hate. Where understanding and education are stronger than lack of care and ignorance. A day when we don’t give a damn about color, age, politics, or gender and just CARE about and FOR each other.

I feel like it could fit like that favorite pair of jeans that you never want to take off. The pair you wear even after the seams break away and half of your leg is hanging out but you just don’t care because they just feel so damn good.

Maybe we need to work on a lot. Maybe it will be painful. Maybe we will struggle.  But I would rather walk through a little fire to get to those diamond days than continue living in a world of rocks.

We all deserve to shine bright.

 

**Thanks, Tom for the inspiration tonight. I hope if you have left this world you are free among the wildflowers. #SomewhereYouFeelFree