Songbird | A Series

I am not sure if you have a song like this in your life, but I have quite a few.

I don’t remember the first time I heard this particular song, but I remember the first time it hit. It was in the Uber from DFW airport back to my home in Dallas at the time. I just flew home after spending a week with my Father and family in Worcester, MA. Dad was in a coma, in ICU, after a major heart attack, and the tug of my current life commitments was pulling at me.

My job needed me, and my partner did, too. Dallas was calling me back.

The Docs said Dad was not long. I had difficult talks with my Mother and brothers and as it happened, I said my "tot zeins" and flew back to my life in Dallas. The Uber picked me up and took me home, and as soon as I sat down in the Uber this song played. (not a coincidence, entirely written in the journey of my own life.)

You know those songs that just take you away to a place that makes you remember just how human we all really are and how vulnerable that makes you. This was one of those moments.

Miraculously, my Dad recovered. Today, January 10, 2026, he's alive and well (very well, actually) and doing better than ever, but this Tim McGraw song hit me at a time my life, when my life was hitting me with some hard stuff at the time.

Ever since, I make a conscious choice "to live like I was dying."

This triggering incident serves as the very beginning of my "joy-spotting" journey and ever since that time, I now only look for those experiences and things in life that bring me joy, joy and more joy.

Here's the song . . .

Live Like You Were Dying

by Tim McGraw (Thank you, Tim McGraw)

He said, "I was in my early 40s with a lot of life before me

When a moment came that stopped me on a dime

I spent most of the next days looking at the X-rays

Talkin' 'bout the options and talkin' 'bout sweet times"

I asked him when it sank in

That this might really be the real end

How's it hit ya when you get that kind of news?

Man, whatcha do?

And he said...

"I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu

And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter

And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'"

And he said, "Some day I hope you get the chance

To live like you were dyin'"

He said, "I was finally the husband that most the time I wasn't

And I became a friend a friend would like to have

And all of a sudden goin' fishin' wasn't such an imposition

And I went three times that year I lost my dad

Well I, I finally read the good book

And I took a good long hard look

At what I'd do if I could do it all again

And then...

"I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu

And I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter

And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin' "

And he said, "Some day I hope you get the chance

To live like you were dyin'"

"Like tomorrow was a gift

And ya got eternity to think about what to do with it

What did you do with it?

What did I do with it?

What would I do with it?"

"Skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu

Then I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter

And I watched an eagle as it was flyin'"

And he said, "Some day I hope you get the chance

To live like you were dyin'

To live like you were dyin'

To live like you were dyin'

To live like you were dyin'

To live like you were dyin'"

Whoo!

And in that moment, in that Uber, I wasn’t thinking about the song at all.

I was thinking about the things I’d put off. The conversations I hadn’t had. The risks I’d talked myself out of because “someday” felt safer than now.

That’s the power of a song like this. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t scold. It simply asks a question and then waits patiently for you to answer it.

If this were it … would you be proud of how you showed up?

We don’t talk enough about vulnerability (well, not the Instagram version of it, but the real kind.) The kind that shows up when you realize you don’t have nearly as much control as you thought you did.

This song reminds us that life doesn’t usually give us advance notice. There’s no neatly printed agenda, no gentle warning bell before the moments that change everything. There’s just now. And then … whatever comes next.

That realization can be terrifying.

But it can also be freeing.

Because once you accept that life is fragile, you start to see how precious it is. You start to understand that the things we’re most afraid of ... loving deeply, speaking honestly, choosing joy, standing still long enough to feel something ... these are the very things that make us human.

And this (in my opinion) is where Eureka Springs comes in.

A Town That Understands Fragility

Eureka Springs is not a place that rushes you. It can’t.

The streets wind. The hills insist you slow down. The staircases appear out of nowhere and lead you somewhere you didn’t plan on going. Even the buildings seem to lean into one another, as if sharing secrets from another century.

This is a town that has known boom and bust, healing and heartbreak, reinvention and resilience. It was built by people searching for something ... relief, redemption, hope ... and that energy never really left.

When you walk through Eureka Springs, even today, especially in the quiet hours of the morning or just before dusk, you feel it: Life is tender here. Moments matter. Nothing is guaranteed.

It’s the kind of place that pairs beautifully with a song like Live Like You Were Dying because both understand the same truth: slowing down isn’t weakness ... it’s wisdom.

OK, so the decorations are down now. The noise of the holidays has packed up and left town. The calendar is clean again, almost suspiciously so. And suddenly, there’s space. Space to breathe. Space to think. Space to feel things you didn’t have time for in November or December.

In most places, January is all about resolutions, new goals, new habits, new versions of ourselves. But, January in Eureka Springs is more like a deep exhale. A pause. A long, slow breath after the emotional sprint of the year before.

In Eureka Springs, January leans into that truth unapologetically.

The streets are quieter. The sidewalks echo just a little more. The hills feel softer somehow, wrapped in mist or dusted with frost. Shop doors still open, but without urgency. Coffee is poured slower. Conversations linger longer.

It’s a town that understands that nothing meaningful happens at full speed.

And that’s exactly why a song like Live Like You Were Dying feels different here ... especially in January.

Slowing down isn't giving up, it's paying attention.

Live like January is doing you a favor by asking you to slow down long enough to remember who you are. Because this life (quiet, fragile, beautiful) is happening right now.❤️