Sand Castles. Beach Dreams. High Hopes. No matter what you call them, we all got them. Staring across the horizon, designing a better version of yourself, for yourself. In the quiet stolen fleeting minutes who doesn’t dare something better? There are days when those fantasies feel exactly as far fetched as the word implies. Just a million miles away. Other times, against the odds, even on shifting sand, quite credible. Perhaps as a world watching the heroic the daring the daunting and dangerous Olympic feats we all allow our dream to grow a bit bigger. Shout our aspirations out there. Come what may.

What is it you wish to do with your One Wild and Precious Life? A provocative question, relevant regardless of your age or sex or background or education or political viewpoint.

Perhaps you want to build stuff. Create with purpose and passion. Manifest your vision in a banana cream pie or sourdough loaf or happy baby or an affordable new home or find a caring spouse or you simple want to walk down the street with pride because you exist.

So, tell me, where you at? Are you fulfilled? Or is that even too big to hold in our troubled current reality? Certainly tides are rising and waves are constantly threatening but I don’t know how to live without dreaming. Not dissing this now. I’m just open to better.

The poet Mary Oliver asks us what we have been doing with our life. Reminds us to take this moment. Don’t let it slip by. But, especially on troubled days I wonder, is it enough to only build what will be washed away? Or does knowing that everything will be gone tomorrow motivation enough to still build it today?

Either way, I’m grabbing on to what I can reach with an eager and hungry heart. With a skyline this broad that’s a lot. How far do you dare to go?

Sunset calls us all home eventually but until that darkness I hope to keep crafting wonders and starry dreams and reasons for glitter and times of laughter and yes, wild living even as impermanent as this sandy world proves to be.