It was a weekend morning in my apartment in Sunnyvale, nearly 20 years ago. I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion at home. Garrison Keillor introduced a musician, who said “I am going to play a song for you. I was thinking of playing something else, but I changed my mind. This song is called Western Highway.”

He started playing, and when he sang I stopped whatever I was doing. This song:

I am a driver on a Western Highway
From the mountains to the sea
And there’s a song on the western highway
That’s saying I will be free

The sky is fading to the color of the valley
Dust of angels and dust of dreams
City lights will shine until tomorrow
And I will not be here

But your light is brighter
Than anything I’ve ever seen
I hear your voice on every station
Singing out of your dream

Here I am on the road again
The song began
And then in the end
I was standing by
I was standing by the sea

By the roadside the trees are shimmering
Black and silver in the cold night air
Under the moon the song is singing
Saying I will meet you there

And your light is brighter
Than anything I’ve ever seen
I hear your voice on every station
Singing out of your dream

Here I am on the road again
The Song began and then in the end
I was standing by
I was standing by the sea.

As soon as it was over I needed to hear it again. Why hadn’t I listened to the name of the artist?

I heard it later. Jerry O’bourne.

I searched online for him. Nowhere. The website for the show wasn’t updated until the next day, and then I finally found the correct spelling. Gerry  O’Beirne.

I used Yahoo to find the album and bought it off of CD baby. It took weeks to arrive.

And I listened to it again. And again.

Always and forever, the voice and the light in this was my own. The light of whatever it is my highest self is pulling me towards is so bright I am blinded. I cannot hear the song without weeping for nameless ambition of my highest hopes. I’m so in love with who I want to become.

Years later I moved to Los Angeles, and the line “dust of angels, dust of dreams” made perfect sense. At the peak of the Angels Crest highway, looking down on the city with its stories I know the color of the dust of dreams.

And how every station plays the song of the dream.

Their dream.

My Dream.

The Dream.

So Bright.