Blog is the new Black

Wishing I had seen Charlie Wilson's War last night, after reading Juliette's post.

Such a hard day of real live manual labor! I knew I needed to work to stay afloat this semester, and my dear old mom and dad were nice enough to let me work for them since finding a job for two weeks seems unlikely. So I spent the day sweeping leaves, cleaning out gutters, and power washing the deck. Throughout the day it became increasingly apparent to me just how much effort it takes to have and maintain material posessions. Will I ever be able to own a house in this area, with the cleaning, repairing, adding, demolishing, and all the other ings that come along with it? And what if me and Mr. Copley both have to work? Is this how we'll spend our weekends? Cleaning out rain gutters? Worrying about the state of the deck? Will we have kids for the sole purpose of making them do our yardwork?

Ever since I can remember, the idea of living in a simple house in a simple town, with a simple, simple, simple way of life, has appealed to me. I don't want things. I want a small place to rest my head, hopefully with my loved ones under the same roof, and I want to know my neighbors and have friends over for dinner. I want to buy my groceries from a small, local market, and I want my clothes to be warm and handmade. I want the people around me to be happy and satisfied with their simple lives, and most of all I just want to be content. I want to plan things less rigidly so there can be room for adventures along the way. I want board games every night. I want to learn how to make cheese and how to paint. I want to get up with the sun.

Whenever I list off these things I tend to get a little melancholy about them, because all I can see is how far away my current life is from the one I so badly want. But I'm deciding to change that now. So much has happened, so much has changed, and there is so much more hard work between me and my dreams than there was before. But glimmers of the dream shine through. I've got the Cheeseboard. I've got Ross and Nicki. I've got Joe, whose day is made when he finds Trivial Pursuit at the thrift store for a dollar. I've got and endless amount of good books waiting to be read, most of which I haven't even heard of yet, but are nonetheless lying in wait, ready to refine the way I think and reason. I've got Tatyana, with her grounded appreciation of life's real gifts, and Melissa, the last link to history for me. I've got a tangled web of English family, scores of stories waiting to be told and heard.

And I've got a simple house in a simple community in a simple country with my name on it. I don't know where it is, or how I'll get there, or when. But I've got it. And I am finally, finally, finally starting to get excited about the journey.