It’s been said that everyone has a story. But I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s a word for understanding those stories. John Koenig first coined it in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (sounds like fun reading, huh?) That term—sonder—is the profound realization that everyone has a joyful, infuriating, colorful, and complex life as your own. It’s the understanding that all we are is dust in the wind. Dude.
Who, you may ask, does this matter to except those who enjoy philosophizing every afternoon at 4:20—usually about the deeper meaning of snack food and whether time is even real? Meet Sabrina of Fairy Best Life, your guide to a realm of spiritual magic, romance, fairy tales, and some hot, enchanted R&B —because nothing pairs better with a little enlightenment than a smooth beat and a touch of fairy dust.
With her new single – Sonder – Sabrina pulls back the curtain on the mystical fantasy community and sets it to music. And it feels like you’ve stepped through a portal where candlelit shadows guide your imagination.
Sonder explores the idea we’re both the characters in each other’s stories, seen in fleeting moments before we disappear into the background of someone else’s life. Sabrina brings mystery and romance, frames life as a film where we’re in snapshots, half-seen by everyone else. The “little Casanova with a little bit of ghost” from the first line is cool—it means an alluring and elusive character.
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The pre-chorus expands on this idea:
“The ones with no names / The ones with no trace / Only exist in one scene, one place.”
It’s a beautiful reminder that we all inhabit different roles at different times—lovers, strangers, and legends in someone else’s story. The chorus turns this into a declaration of control in our life’s story.
“Let’s give the wanderers something to believe in / Those that sonder, a mystery for every season / Empower the cinemagic feeling / Let’s be the authors of a life fit for the silver screen.”
This is for dreamers. Instead of just being a shadow in someone else’s story, Sabrina is asking us to make our own, to live life as an ever-changing movie.
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The second verse gets even more vivid:
“We could be the ones in the window / Waiting out the storm in a silent disco / Strobe lights flash as lightning strikes the streets below / A little bit of Thriller with a little bit of freak show.”
The storm outside, the silent disco, the nod to Thriller—it’s a visual nod to electricity and illusion.
Sonder wraps these themes in a sultry R&B track. The song is like a dream that slips from quiet moments to big, unexpected ones. It’s an enchanting glimpse into Sabrina’s world.
Sonder is a love letter to the unseen lives all around us and an invitation to become something more than life for a moment. Because, in the end, who’s to say we aren’t all just shadows in the windows of someone else’s story?
