Gold in the Dust: Stay Golden, Ponyboy

S.E. Hinton: The Outsiders
Elvis: Tomorrow is a Long Time

There Was Gold in the Dust

They say God formed the first man from the dust of the ground.

But no one ever said what was in that dust.

Maybe it was just clay and ash,

the dry hush of a world not yet singing.

But maybe—

just maybe—

there was gold in it.

Maybe flecks of firelight had settled in the soil,

the last sparks of stars that died in silence.

Maybe the earth held ancient shimmer,

buried deep beneath the weight of time,

and God saw it—

and scooped it into His hands.

So when He shaped Adam,

He shaped both ruin and radiance.

Humility and heaven.

The fragile and the forever.

And maybe that’s what we are:

dust, yes—

but dust with gold in it.

Carrying light we didn’t earn.

Worth we didn’t make.

Shining, not because we’re perfect—

but because somewhere in our bones

is the memory of being touched by God.

⸻

The Outsiders

Some stories don’t end.

They just settle into your bloodstream—

a line, a face, a feeling

that never really fades.

Sometimes it’s a whisper from a dying friend.

Sometimes it’s the way a book cracked open your chest

when you were too young to explain why.

Sometimes it’s a song that plays in a flashback,

and you don’t even know how long it’s been

since you first heard it—

only that it’s still playing

somewhere in you.

I remember the way it made me feel when I first read The Outsiders in school.

I remember thinking it wasn’t just a book—it was a mirror.

A bruised kind of beautiful.

A world of boys who didn’t belong anywhere but found something holy in the way they held each other up.

Grease and grace.

Bruised knuckles and beating hearts.

I read it with a highlighter soul,

like maybe if I underlined enough,

I could hold on to the gold parts a little longer.

I can’t remember exactly when I saw the movie—only that it felt like watching something I already knew by heart.

Like someone had filmed the inside of the book and pressed record on the ache.

It wasn’t polished.

It wasn’t perfect.

It was boys with names like Dallas and Sodapop and Ponyboy,

moving through a world that didn’t make space for softness.

A world that made them run,

made them hide,

made them fight to protect something fragile inside themselves.

And somewhere in the middle of it—

after the church,

after the fire,

after the smoke and fear and burned skin—

there’s a moment that stops time.

Ponyboy is lying there.

Still.

Bruised.

Between waking and remembering.

And that’s when the song begins.

“Tomorrow is a Long Time.”

Not loud. Not showy. Just… floating.

A ghost of a song.

You hear it, and it feels like something sacred.

Like a voice coming from somewhere beyond the world.

Elvis Presley, sure.

But the words—those words—

those are Dylan’s.

“If today was not an endless highway…”

And suddenly the movie isn’t just about Ponyboy anymore.

It’s about you.

And your brothers.

And your quiet thoughts at night.

And every moment you’ve tried to hold onto something gold

before the world washed it away.

That’s what this story does.

It sings.

It haunts.

It stays.

“Stay gold, Ponyboy.”

It’s the line everybody remembers.

But maybe we never really understood what Johnny was saying.

Not completely.

He wasn’t just asking Ponyboy to stay innocent.

He was telling him to remember what he’s made of.

To remember that even in a world of broken glass and scarred-up hands,

there’s still something in us that can’t be touched.

Something golden.

Something God-breathed.

Something that doesn’t come from winning fights

or being tough

or even surviving.

It’s just there.

Quiet and glowing.

Buried in the dust,

but never gone.

I didn’t know back then

how many times I’d need to remember that line.

How many nights would come where I’d feel scraped raw by the world,

where I’d wonder if I was still the same kid who believed in beauty,

who believed in people,

who believed in light.

I’ve grown up.

Gotten older.

Watched things break, watched people leave.

But that line—

stay gold—

has followed me.

It followed me through friendships that felt like family.

Through late-night drives with the windows down

and songs that felt like scripture.

It followed me as I started to understand the kind of woman I wanted to be—

not the softest, not the strongest,

but maybe the kind who still sees beauty,

even in the dark.

And now—

now I catch myself saying it without meaning to.

When someone shines and doesn’t even know it.

When my daughter twirls barefoot in the living room,

music in her blood.

When my son says something wild and wonderful

about God, or stars—like Adam was made from gold.

I think of Ponyboy.

I think of Johnny.

I think of all of us,

trying to hold onto something good

in a world that keeps moving too fast.

And I whisper it, sometimes,

quiet and true—

a blessing for whoever needs it:

Stay gold.

⸻



The Song That Stayed

“Tomorrow Is a Long Time” plays in The Outsiders like a ghost—quiet, aching, unforgettable.

Elvis Presley recorded the version we hear in the film, but the song itself was written by Bob Dylan—one of the great poets of light and longing. Dylan once said Elvis’s rendition was the only cover of one of his songs he truly treasured.

Maybe that’s fitting. A song about love and distance and memory, passed from poet to king, then folded into a story about boys who never had a chance—

except, maybe, the chance to shine once.

To be golden.

And to be remembered.