Dreamer

My iPod is full of apps and video, and very little music.  Overall, music isn't a big part of my life, but the other day I needed to drown out some nearby cube chatter at work, so I plugged in my earbuds and listened to "The River Runs Low Tonight" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range.  It's one of those songs that puts me in my happy place, but doesn't distract me from my work {Listen up family members, if I ever have a mental breakdown, this is the song to play to calm my nerves}.  It's from the album "The Way It Is."  I rarely listen to the whole album not because I don't like it, but because I don't want to replace the memories attached to it with something new.

When I listen to this album, I am in my 17-year old mind, where the amazing life I'm going to have is just around the corner.  I can literally see big green meadows with mountains just on the horizon.  {It looks just like the cover of a college brochure for a university in Wyoming that I got in the mail.  I saved it just to look at the picture, even though I knew I would not be able to afford the out-of-state tuition.}  I am dreaming of moving to the West {Wyoming,  Montana, Colorado} or maybe even to Alaska.  I am living a life in the outdoors, marrying at 23 or 24, having a bunch of kids, living off the grid.  My husband's going to be a mechanical genius who can build and maintain our solar generator, wind generator and/or hydropower unit.  I'm growing a huge garden.  My husband and I are going to fish and hunt to fill our freezer {you know, the one that runs off one of the aforementioned generators}.  I am dreaming of somehow working botany into a career, even though I already know there are probably a total of about five jobs in the whole United States that actually pay you to walk around and look at plants, all five of which require a doctorate and pay minimum wage.  But hey, at 17, you can dream.  Besides I had a backup plan, I was going to be a writer.  Is everyone such a ridiculous romantic at that age, or was it just me?  Is there a song or an album that puts you in a particular place and time?