ode to branson, colorado: bring your dream

I haven’t said all that much about my new rural community down by the Colorado/New Mexico border, but here’s some wordage that just came through. Once you get excrutiatingly clear about your dream and release just about everything blocking your attainment of it, you may find yourself in surprising and unexpected locations. When you are called, you simply go. It matters little whether anything makes sense, is practical or convenient.  Home is where you find it; paradise is yours to create. This is mine: What’s yours?

BRANSON, COLORADO
Bring Your Dream

More than a hundred years ago,
homesteaders made their way west to build
farms and ranches, homes and families,
in southeastern Las Animas County, Colorado.
They brought their hopes and dreams,
and they planted the future.

But here, where the plains meet the mesas,
the land and sky can be exquisitely unforgiving,
so some folks were more successful than others.

Today, slowly but surely and without a lot of fanfare,
new dreams are being lived out in tiny Branson, Colorado.
The dream of finding an affordable home to hang your hat and
raising wholesome children who share your personal values.
The dream of keeping chickens out back and walking
to the post office each morning
and putting roots under your long-held ideas and visions.

Whether you dream of finally picking up that
paintbrush or writing the great American novel or
growing a business or simply living in a place where the silence
can be defeaning and the horizon stretches for miles before you,
you can live it in Branson.

Nobody’s going to try and sell you anything —
it’s just not that kind of place.
If you’re meant to be here, your heart will guide you.
Bring some warm clothes and a wide-brimmed hat,
an unquenchable desire to slow down and pitch in where you can.
Bring your resourcefulness and your spirit of true community,
and bring everything that life has taught you so far.
(A truckload of tools and stuff to barter might be a good idea, too.)

Slowly but surely, without a lot of fanfare,
folks are finding something to love about Branson, Colorado.

And when they do,
dang if they don’t find their dream sitting on the doorstep.