Sometimes I like to sit still and daydream.

It feels good to be in control. To give permission to myself to just escape and allow my mind to wander wherever it pleases. This must be how birds feel. Can you imagine that?

Like a bird, I like to travel to new places. More often than not, my daydreams end up revisiting a place of the past. It’s a pretty cool thought when you really think about how your mind is able to do that. The implosion of imagination within your brain to just suddenly appear in a country thousands of miles away…in just a manner of nanoseconds? Woah.

For 36 seconds, I’m in a kayak, surrounded by an ocean of pitch black darkness. I’m surrounded by tiny streaks of neon blue lights that dart haphazardly in every random direction below us. I carefully scoop a cup of this magical water and drop it on my lap…only to flinch back in surprise when I see my own hand glittering. I am in Mosquito Bay, Puerto Rico experiencing one of nature’s most incredible phenomenons – the bioluminescent bay.

And now I find myself in a different kayak. This time yellow. I see the silhouettes of two neck bending volcanoes across the horizon. I hear monkeys howling. I see farmers tending to their ox. The water is quiet, but only for a few minutes. Rain clouds decides to make a sudden intrusion to an afternoon of peace and begins spilling thousands of little droplets splashing across my face, bare feet, and freshly-wounded-flesh-peeled injury on my left knee. But I welcome it, because I am dreaming still and nothing can stop me.  I am in Ometepe Island, Nicaragua.

I close my eyes now as I have been daydreaming with eyes open and wait to see where my mind takes me next.

I’m flying, no I’m windsurfing across the Atlantic Ocean to a small, quiet city by the sea, populated by 8,000 adorable Irish folks. I’m a bit cold and wet by the time I finally arrive on a perfectly placed hill that boasts a panoramic view of an armada of boats and island humps. I look up and see skies as blue as marbles and feel the comforting blanket of the sun, radiating softly on my skin. Then I GASP. Before me, stretched as wide and long as the Great Wall Of China, is a rainbow so rich and detailed in every one of its colors and so bright and overpowering that I almost began to question if I was hallucinating.

It was the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. And it just so happened to be in Howth, Ireland.

These and many other stories in my mind continue on.

Some, more detailed than others.

But they are stories nonetheless.

They are visual and emotional triggers that will leave permanent footsteps in my mind and my imagination for the rest of my life.

They form a little fort in my mind, where I know I’ll be shielded safely from life’s harsh realities, even maybe for just a few seconds.

It’s a priceless investment.

So go travel. And come daydream with me.

-AL