Of Clouds and Silver Linings

I remember the days when I was just a boy, when my hungry mind would look for escape from the bondage of reality to become something bigger than I was; taller, a bit more muscle tucked between my skin and bones, a superpower of some sort (what more would a boy ask for, right?). I searched for something that I couldn't find in my childish games and often illogical day dreams, and I found my paradise within the pages of paperback fantasy.

I found a place of endless possibility, an escape maybe, from the incessant arguing behind closed doors, the harsh looks shot across the table while plastic smiles that held on for dear life, desperately clinging to some semblance of a perfectly happy and normal life. I didn't understand then, even as I have understood now, because back then, I had discovered my very own closet that opened up into a world filled with delight, adventure, thrills, and- my favorite- where reality did not apply most times. Inside my books I fought deadly pirates single-handedly -literally- while balancing a glass of brandy on my other hand, I scaled the highest of peaks, stood side by side with a great lion in an even greater army. I have been a  lovable giant, a heroic squirrel, a dark shadow that strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest of men (cue organ music). I have been carried into the air on great leathery wings as a dragon, gargantuan and proud. When my mind was set free to roam inside these stories, my little innocent heart with its clouds full of questions that always seemed to chase the tears from my body, was set free along with it, and even as I grew and matured, I found my place of solace no longer needed to be hidden inside the pages of an old and barely-holding-itself-together book, because if in my mind I could be anyone and any thing, then in real life I could become anyone and anything, my life was not tied down on the sinking block of society's criteria of what was successful and what was not worth while. this got me thinking; perhaps we all need a break from reality every once in a while to live a dream; to possess true love, and to touch pure bliss. And so, this came into being, that you can't live inside a cloud (if at all we could) and yet see the sun as it strikes the edges that most likely made the old man in a farm think of silver and then share this with his twelve young- that's a fantasy for some other day. Back on point, it takes one to look at life from a different perspective to enjoy its little, often uncelebrated silver linings, and if ever they were people, I would tell these silver linings that on this blog, they will find a home, and I hope that you do too. Life doesn't have to be as pale as would be said by millions, live a dream, seek out and find your silver lining.