In the past month or so my mother has been the lucky recipient of many earfuls of of hysteria. But ever the realist, she has been telling me non-stop that now is the time to really give some serious thought to what I want my life to look like. Maybe this is when other college students begin to give serious consideration to the maps of their lives but I feel as if I've always been thinking ahead, always planning, always dreaming. In the last year or so I've been formulating an even clearer plan. Some would say a pipe dream. I have always been interested in living a life of sustainability. But I've been very conflicted over my own hypocrisy. I drive a car and until Jake moved to San Diego I was putting more miles on it than I care to share. While I have drastically reduced that part of my carbon footprint I am still required to drive for my job. I hate this. Every time I push on the gas I feel a little dirty and selfish. I beat myself up about it maybe more than I should but in other areas of my life I am much much better. But this is a subject I do a lot of preaching about and I'm starting to wonder who's the pot and who's the kettle. The ideals that I preach require a radical restructuring of our current situation and quite a bit of sacrifice. This was all weighing heavily on my mind until we made that trip to Pennsylvania last year. At that point I was preaching heavily about seasonal eating (do not even begin to ask for a list of all the things I preach about) and when we got into Lancaster and saw all the small Amish farms and roadside fruit stands it all fell into place. I want to live on a farm!
I'm sure half of you are choking on air from all the laughing you're doing but I am 100% serious. The rest of my dreams are still quite solid but I think they could really mesh well with a small, organic farm. I dream of a white farm house with a wrap-around porch and a huge tree shading it. It sits smack drab in the middle of a few acres of seasonal crops with a small winding road leading to it. In the winter pile of rainboots sits next to the front door and in the summer beach towels dry on the deck railings. I dream of time to make dinner while dancing to music, time to sew Christmas presents. There will be a few chickens and maybe a cow or two. I'll spend most of my days writing freelance and the rest of it I will make homemade yogurt and yummy soup. Ah, it will be the life.
My dreams must be fairly simple in relation to others'. But all I need to be happy is plenty of free time, creative outlets and a sense of progress. If I can earn money for writing, something I would choose to do without compensation, life will be peachy.
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Choke we have similar dreams. I dream of living in a secluded area, canning baby food from my own seasonal garden, sewing cloth diapers and training pants, and having old lazy dogs to leave fur on my wood floors. We thought for a while that we wanted to move to Idaho, but it is far to conservative. I am still filtering through states.
ReplyDeletePennsylvania was very nice. Winters are cold but it is close enough to a coast to not be too conservative.
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