I'm happy you are with your family in Minnesota. A few months ago I wrote about my perfect living situation. I'm just going to steal from there for here, knowing it is as much a pipe dream as anything else I wool gather about....
Sometimes I imagine my perfect living situation would be in a little shack, where I spend long hours sitting and writing and thinking, with a river or stream nearby, with an outdoor sitting area, and there are raised beds full of flowers so that at certain times of year the entire space actually vibrates with the buzz of visiting pollinators. Bird feeders, a few chairs, a table. I'm visited regularly, for days even at a time, by the people I love most, and who love me the most, but even they recognize that for me to maintain my sanity I need stretches of time and space all to myself. Not because I don't like company, but because I suspect the weight of my brooding presence can be difficult on others, and I'm often at my best alone where I don't feel I am bothering anybody.
Within walking distance of my shack is some big organic farm run by hippies and queer people and artists and Indigenous healers teaching people about native plants, the whole bit, and I'm just the grizzled old graybeard who doesn't hardly know shit about anything going on there but putters around helping out in exchange for a basket of food now and then, can effortlessly drive a stick shift, and is a pretty good source for dropping wisdom on all the troubled young people who are just getting started, who are wondering when they need to give up the itinerant life of hoboing along and get a "real job," and a “real life” and I can wave my ink-stained old hands extravagantly and say, "But this IS the real life!"
Ha! I appreciate the specificity of this dream. In some ways this is the dynamic I have with my sister and her family. They are the young whippersnappers raising children and they also are prodigious gardeners and DIYers who share their bounty with me. I am the person who entertains the children and then withdraws to do my work/writing/etc. I am totally the same with regard to needing a lot of alone time to do my thing. I think we have a role in it to show that not all the adults are the family having types; some of us are more contemplative dreamer types, which is an important role. And that's the appeal of stronger communities anyway -- to show that there are many ways to be.
Did you write that poem? Beautiful. I decided against logic & advice from friends and chose love. It hurt a lot. But probably not as much as making the logical choice would have hurt.
I'm happy you are with your family in Minnesota. A few months ago I wrote about my perfect living situation. I'm just going to steal from there for here, knowing it is as much a pipe dream as anything else I wool gather about....
Sometimes I imagine my perfect living situation would be in a little shack, where I spend long hours sitting and writing and thinking, with a river or stream nearby, with an outdoor sitting area, and there are raised beds full of flowers so that at certain times of year the entire space actually vibrates with the buzz of visiting pollinators. Bird feeders, a few chairs, a table. I'm visited regularly, for days even at a time, by the people I love most, and who love me the most, but even they recognize that for me to maintain my sanity I need stretches of time and space all to myself. Not because I don't like company, but because I suspect the weight of my brooding presence can be difficult on others, and I'm often at my best alone where I don't feel I am bothering anybody.
Within walking distance of my shack is some big organic farm run by hippies and queer people and artists and Indigenous healers teaching people about native plants, the whole bit, and I'm just the grizzled old graybeard who doesn't hardly know shit about anything going on there but putters around helping out in exchange for a basket of food now and then, can effortlessly drive a stick shift, and is a pretty good source for dropping wisdom on all the troubled young people who are just getting started, who are wondering when they need to give up the itinerant life of hoboing along and get a "real job," and a “real life” and I can wave my ink-stained old hands extravagantly and say, "But this IS the real life!"
Ha! I appreciate the specificity of this dream. In some ways this is the dynamic I have with my sister and her family. They are the young whippersnappers raising children and they also are prodigious gardeners and DIYers who share their bounty with me. I am the person who entertains the children and then withdraws to do my work/writing/etc. I am totally the same with regard to needing a lot of alone time to do my thing. I think we have a role in it to show that not all the adults are the family having types; some of us are more contemplative dreamer types, which is an important role. And that's the appeal of stronger communities anyway -- to show that there are many ways to be.
What you love is your fate. Thank you for that very thought provoking poem.
Glad you enjoyed it, Mary Rose. :)
Did you write that poem? Beautiful. I decided against logic & advice from friends and chose love. It hurt a lot. But probably not as much as making the logical choice would have hurt.
The "logical" thing is not always the right thing, in my experience. The poem is by Frank Bidart.