The Stage is Set...

Sometimes when I am listening to music while riding my bike or driving, I imagine I am in a movie and the music is the soundtrack. Depending on the songs that are playing and the mood that I am in, it can be an upbeat romantic comedy, morose tale of love and loss, or sometimes even an action-packed tale of mystery and intrigue. Either way, it's always a fictional tale dreamed up by my overactive imagination.

This morning I was riding my bike in the woodsy park near my house. It crazy-rained last night so the gravelly and dirt roads were wet and sometimes it took extra effort to maneuver my bike wheels along them. The sky was cloudy and the tree branches hung low and canopied my path. My soundtrack was the melancholy music of Cowboy Junkies, Jay Farrar, and Conor Oberst. The scene was set....

A woman (me) who's been through a series of trials and tribulations is at a turning point. The struggle of guiding her bike on these muddy roads parallels the struggles she's experienced in her life. It's all come to this point...this exact moment of her realization that, although life has dealt her what feels like a hopeless hand, her destiny is ultimately hers to create. She stands up to pedal, moving her bicycle more quickly through the muck. A montage of scenes from her life flash into her brain to the tune of Cowboy Junkies' "To Live is to Fly." She imagines the ones she loves, her cats, her precious grandmother...who only ever wanted her to find true happiness, but died last year in a grisly farming accident. He grandmother's voice rises above the music and says, "Only you can write your story." She smiles as the bike leaves the dark trail and breaks into a bright green field. Overhead, the clouds part and reveal a glint of summer sunshine. She raises her eyes to the warm morning rays and says, "Thank you, Grandma." Her life is forever changed.

I'll be holding auditions for roles in my imaginary movies very soon -- have your people call my people.