It was one of those nights when the gray skies and myriad reflections from the rain lend the city an emotional complexity that’s not always so prominent.

Coincidentally, last night was also my first trip to see “Before I Die”, an interactive art installation downtown on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. There’s another wall at Waters Avenue and 31st Street.

Click here for the Before I Die Savannah Facebook page.

You can also read more about the walls by clicking on the second picture. The idea was originally conceived by artist Candy Chang and was put into motion locally through SeeSAW (See Savannah Art Walls) and the Savannah Urban Arts Festival.

Maybe it was the evening’s weather, but I found something quite moving in the mix of the trivial, the sarcastic, the serious — and the repeated hopes to live in ways that would enrich the lives of others.

Some that struck me last night:

Before I die I want to . . .

• be the best mother.
• feed all the stray cats. Meow.
• meet a ninja.
• teach the world evolution is fact.
• use the force.
• be punk — ross.
• learn how.
• learn how to let it go.
• fight a bear.
• visit Antartica (sic).
• be married to the one I love.
• pay off my loans.
• pee on R. Kelly.
• ride a llama naked.
• marry my partner legally.
• hold a puppy.
• have lived honorably.
• trust myself enough to be a good father.

A block away as I headed home, I took a single shot of the SCAD Student Center, a former synagogue and church that looked stunning in the mist.