A Dream

When I started out on this adventure I wanted to bring with me as little as possible. Like the religious hermits I wanted to leave everything behind in order to be closer to my source. For the religious that source is God, an exceedingly simple idea for me. Since I have stopped being religious I have gone through many years of uncertainty about what my source is.

First came a refusal of anything but the imperical, for how can one base such an important thing as their source on anything that cannot be proven? I studied many philosophies and found that all lacked a real understanding of the world; by this I mean that every theory about causality, linguistics, religion, reason and more were not exactly right. How? It was as if every person had looked at the world and interpreted it according to their time period and personal influences and none of them were right for my time period and personal influences. For no matter how much we try to remove ourselves and be "objective" we can never get away from those small things that order reality for us. I came to the realization that we can only be aware of what is affecting our thinking.

At some point a woman named Jeda came into my life and had a profound influence on my reconnection with the immaterial. I brought out tarot cards that had been in a closet for five years and we read them together. Through my bond with the cards I realized that there must be something more to existence than what we see. Something tugged at my soul from inside because I have felt my dead grandfather and great grandmother. I have sometimes had to tell ghosts to "go away". I have seen the sun set over the desert and felt totally at peace, like I was an extension of the ground.

After these many years, I have come to think of my source as something within myself. People tell me I am wise, so maybe this approach works for me and won't work for others, but I've decided that the most important thing is to figure out what I want. But what do I want? I wasn't born like some knowing: I want a big house on a hill, I want to be a doctor, I want . . . Much of my life I have decided what to do based upon what it will get me in the future. If I take this class then I can get into college. If I get into college then I can get a job. If I can get a job then I'll be happy. This is how my train of thought went since high school. It's as if the rest of your life doesn't exist until you get out of college and then you're stuck: what do you do?

Well, you're supposed to (a) get married, buy a house, go on vacations and have kids or (b) pay rent on an apartment, date people, go to clubs and go on vacation. Those I realized pretty quickly were not my dreams. But I didn't know the shape of my dream. It includes a man. Hopefully one that will be a good partner for my whole life. It includes a house and kids, though not for some years. It also includes waking up in the morning with useful things to do.

Like when I divested myself of all the theories I could to figure out what really exists, now I have divested myself of all of my stuff to figure out what I want. It's remarkably freeing getting rid of stuff; having as little as possible makes many things a whole lot easier. Most importantly because I love to travel, if I have all my stuff in the car, I can go wherever I want whenever I want. I don't have to sit through a week of work waiting to get out of the city only to have two days before I have to get back again so I can go to work and pay my bills. Now we just have to work until we have enough money to last us until the next place, then we find work again. We had enough to get us to Montana, then we decided to get a job on a ranch. That worked out well. Now, we'll travel until we get to Kentucky or Tennessee and then work at a distillery.

With this ability to move around my dream is starting to take shape. My dream house has four rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and large living room. My dream land has a creek for water and plenty of good soil for growing. Living on the land will be a cow (for milk and cheese), chickens (for eggs) and maybe a pig (for bacon). There is a small orchard with apples, pears, persimmons, lemons, limes and pistachios. There are also many fruits and vegetables growing: tomatoes, avocados, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, lettuce, strawberries, blackberries and pumpkins and squash in the fall. I will make all of the curtains and tableclothes in the house. Alex will make most of the furniture in the house and he and I will build the house, with a porch wrapping around it. When it's cold outside I'll listen to the radio and crochet hats and scarves. If we can, we'll have a piano and I'll play whenever I can. And, if we have kids, Alex and I'll make their toys in the woodshop and on the sewing table. I'd like to also be able to write out on the farm. I'd want to make children's books when I have kids. To write fairy tales about the farm when they get older. To continue to write philosophy and see if anyone wants to read it.

Now, the overwhelming question, why? Why a simple country life instead of city glamour? Why a life working land instead of offices? Why make toys instead of buy them? Why make cheese? Why sustainable? So many questions to ask, and so many answers but the most accurate is that I'll be nearer to the things that are real. I'll be with trees and plants, making the things I need to sustain myself. If I want water, I'll go get it. If I want sunflowers, I'll grow them. We'll be at the whim of nature; some years will be good and some will be bad. At times we might have nothing. But I've done my best work improvising and I have all the womanly and some of the manly skills needed for working on a farm. Looking back on my life, I realize I unwittingly cultivated the skills I need: sewing, building, cooking, preserving, gardening, astronomy, hiking. . . And this is a good dream, because most of all I want to have a welcoming home.

The cities and suburbs are not places for me to live. They crowd people in and box them out from the world. I had to live in the city to realize that I wanted the country. This is not to say that I don't enjoy a club, ballet, museum or art show. I do, but that is not my life. And when my kids are growing up, even though they're in the country, Ill make sure that they have good experiences in museums and ballets. I'll make sure my land isn't too far outside a major city.

Now, for the neighbors, I'd prefer them to be kind; not that they do or say the right thing at the right time, but that they're genuinely kind people. People who give because they like to give, not because they expect something in return. People who throw a party just to have a good time together. People who come to see you just because they want to talk.

What is your dream? And why do you want it?