Goodness me, what a week. What a week, dear poppets. Imagine a week with ongoing home renovations dictated by the landlord, two moves (Monday, to get out of the Historical House, and Friday, to get back to it), a deadline, a Polish class, and a sudden business crisis, and you have my week.
Poor, poor stressed out Seraphic. Plus my mummy and daddy aren't coming to Scotland for Christmas after all, weep, weep, weep.
I have to admit that the Monday to Friday sojourn (our fourth) in the Royal Mile flat was pleasant in itself although I did think for a moment the climb up the narrow turnpike staircase with all my luggage had brought on a heart attack. It is such a nice little flat, and if you are coming to Edinburgh for a few days, let me know and I will tell you whom to contact to rent this little flat. It is a stone's throw from the National Library, which is wonderfully convenient.
I have a little dreamy dream that one day I will not live in the attic of the Historical House but in a flat in a slightly younger building rather closer to the heart of Edinburgh. The occupancy of this flat will be funded by another dreamy dream, that of making enough money from my books (plus savings from B.A.'s heritage industry salary). And that, of course, depends upon me actually writing and selling those books, which is a lot of hard work. However, that is the kind of hard work I don't mind, once I get over crippling procrastination.
(This reminds me that the Inner Child has been muttering something about getting back to Prudence. We are hashing out a plan for making Prudence earn her keep.)
But enough about me. What are your little dreamy dreams that have nothing to do with future husbands and future children? I'm looking for little dreamy dreams that you can potentially get by working for them. (And wouldn't it be marvellous if you could get a husband by working for one? Like if husbands grew in fields, and all you had to do was be a really good gardener, digging and sowing and weeding and pruning and fighting the crows and shooting the rabbits... Ah! There's at least a short story in that.)
Dreamy dreams, please!
25 comments:
In the short term, I'm thinking I'd like to run off to Africa and do a little volunteering for a few months after I finish my degree. What I'm studying seems so boring and meaningless (though it's an important bit of paper to get for the fun career I'm pursuing), I think it will be nice to do something really useful and fulfilling as a refreshing change. Also I like to travel, and it fits the bill for that as well.
This idea is still embryonic at this point; I know what my parents' reaction will be when I tell them. Plus it's important to me to go with a Catholic mission of some sort, and as they're not the best at advertising it will take some research. AFRICA!!! Show me your elephants!!!!
My dreamy dream is to have a house with a huge front porch. It would have a large, comfy porch swing, and it would be on quiet side street, with just enough beautiful trees to add vibrant colors but also let sunlight stream through onto the porch. People would know that they can always stop by, say hi, share some cookies and conversation.
The house doesn't have to be big, but I'd like it to have at least 3 bedrooms so I could have 2 spare bedrooms for overnight guests or anybody who needs help that I could take under my roof. My godchildren could come visit for short vacations and I would plan lots of fun activities for them to do.
Linked to this dream is the desire to take my godson/nephew (once he gets a little bit older) to some of the amazing places I've been in the world. I'd like to show him how beautiful and varied the world is, and how you can meet so many interesting and good people.
These dreams probably aren't exciting, but they're mine: owning a home (not sharing walls/ceilings with neighbors anymore), a job where I don't come home brain-dead afterwards and do feel as if I'm making a difference, and having enough time and energy to finally finish those novels I started in high school/college. The second dream might help the third dream!
My dreamy dream is to teach English in a foreign country, preferably Germany, but I'd take anywhere picturesque.
I think any dreamy dream involving either world non-touristy travel or home ownership inherently exciting!
One of my dreamy dreams is to have a really large, gorgeous garden, the kind with vistas, and sub-gardens, and deep herbaceous borders, and possibly a small apple orchard off to one side. I've loved gardening since I asked my mother for a piece of ground when I was five (being quite influenced by The Secret Garden), and I'm pretty good at it, but a little while back I got rather burnt out. I've never owned my own place, but I planted a garden anyway, so when I had to move, I had to leave the garden behind. The last garden I had to abandon was the one that came closest to what I've always dreamed of, with an herb garden, the beginnings of a rose garden, a luxurious hedge of lavender all along the wall, and an ever-increasing vegetable plot. When I had to leave that one behind, something kinda broke, and I haven't planted anything in the ground since.
However, behind my house there is a very large empty piece of ground, where an apartment building used to be before it burned to the ground a few winters ago. Every time I pass it, I start planning gardens out in my head. There is where I would plant the hedge of cedars to be the backdrop for the Mary Garden, and here is where I could plot out the herbs, and the roses would go across the small hill in front, and the peonies would go along the back edge, and here would be the lines of raspberries & blackberries, and here could be the vegetable garden, complete with a bamboo cane teepee that pea or cucumber vines could grow up over and make a green hiding place for small children, and in the back could be the pergola covered by climbing hydrangea with the big table for outdoor dinners, next to the big firepit with thick stone walls suitable for perching upon while one roasted marshmallows.
I'm still not ready to commit to this - a garden like this takes a lot of work, and time, and money. I don't know who owns the land, and I can't afford to buy it myself right now. I think I know who the owner is, and if it's who I think, I bet they would let me do whatever I wanted. But I'm still not at a place where I can easily contemplate putting my heart into a piece of land that isn't really mine, knowing that there is a possibility that I might have to abandon it all over again. So for now I'm just letting this dream percolate, and waiting to see what happens.
I would like to travel. Until my student loans are paid off in several years I won't be able to afford to get any of the exotic places I want to go (I live in the USA so the cost of flights overseas to European countries or to my dream safari in Africa would be prohibitive unless I could eliminate almost every other travel expense). So those are dreams for when my loans get paid off, if ever. This is actually a dream that I might have to sacrifice if I get married, because unless I marry someone who makes quite a bit more than I do we wouldn't be able to afford to go until my loans were paid off anyway, and if we had children by then we probably couldn't go then either.
I have a related dream that actually might be achievable on my own within the next nine years, though. I would like to go to fun places in the United States. If I can get my hands on a more reliable vehicle than I currently own and if I can find some friends who would like to go with me, the cost would be very manageable. I would like to go to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and some of the other national parks (I've never been to any of them). I've been to DC before but did not see the National Shrine and want to be able to see that too.
A very manageable version of my dream is to find places in my own state that could give me a taste of the same experience.
I know this is very much touristy travel, and so probably not as exciting as non-touristy travel, but I just love natural beauty and want to see as much of it as possible.
My goodness gracious! Have you considered writing for gardening magazines or generally about gardens? Because I have ten brown thumbs and just reading your comment made ME want to garden!
My dreamy dream is to have a little cottage with a library (preferably in a room with a fireplace) , which I'll buy after I do a PhD in composition and get a job at a university I love (like the one I'm teaching at now but at which, alas, I cannot stay without a terminal degree). Teaching, reading, not sharing walls with neighbors as Kate P said--sounds heavenly to me!
Bernadette, I have an "established garden" (aka - one that needs some revamping) I inherited when I bought an older home last year. I enjoy gardening, but don't have the time to do very much or the ability to visualize a good garden design. I would LOVE the input of someone like you to tell me how I "remodel" my garden into something more pleasing to the eye. Perhaps you could offer consulting services until you have that land you can call your very own!
You know, I never have thought of writing for gardening magazines. I think I need to get over my reluctance to plant anything in something more permanent than pots first. But it's an idea. :)
My dreamy dreams usually center around having my own apartment, decorated -- like, actually decorated, not just filled with stuff -- in a very feminine fashion. Sometimes I dream about a pretty college in a small town, other times my imaginings are more urban, but I always imagine having my own office decked out in all the knick knacks and posters I've been accumulating for a future office. And somewhere -- in either the office, or a combination library/guestroom -- there is a set of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I'm trying to think of non-material dreams but it's hard to put them into words. I'd like to be able to make a Catholic contribution with my scholarship, I guess.
@Domestic Diva - I'm always happy to talk about gardens! If you click through to my blog, you should see a widget to send me an email up in the top right corner. Send me a message, and I'd be happy to find out more about your enviable situation!
Someday I would love to have a real job with an income (in my field), and therefore a home to decorate, one that I would feel at least semi-permanently attached to: a place where I could hang pictures and purchase furniture to "re-do", because I would not always be thinking "it is a waste of money, I am moving in x number of months."
Also, a library. A lovely library with ceiling- high shelves and ladder that wheels around the walls... all my books could finally, finally be unpacked in one place. And it would have cozy chairs with a fire by which to read in the winter, and a bay window with a cushioned seat for reading in the summer.
Admittedly, unless I end up marrying a very rich man, I don't think the Beauty-and-the-Beast type library is a terribly real dream...but it is dreamy!
My dreamy dream is that I will do great in my German studies, pass my fluency test this spring and can obtain a resident visa and find a permanent job here. :)
Some day I want an academic job that allows me to spend summers and sabbaticals on the Brittany coast, when I will live in a house on the ramparts of St Malo. Please note this also involves the dream that someday an academic job will earn me enough to BUY a house on the ramparts of St Malo, which is in itself an impossible dream. Luckily I would happily settle for a rhododendron-covered Breton cottage.
My dream is to own and run my very own music school, like the one i worked at in australia. My second dream is to move to a newer house with a kitchen bigger than a matchbox! Either that or afford all the renovations this house needs.
Aussie girl in Australia
My dreamy dreams are to have a novel published, and to travel to Montana and New York. I love the thought of my own home, but I know it's almost out of the question (unless I accidentally write the next YA bestseller!!) so I'm happy to 'reshape' that dream into being able to afford renting on my own. But this dream-rented-space would include a room I'd nickname 'The Children's Room,' for the children of my friends when they visit; it would be filled with books, a huge comfy chair, and astonishing mechanical toys so that they they could be lost in their own dreams while their mothers and I have tea.
These are all very beautiful dreamy dreams, and I hope they come true! It seems to me that they are all achievable with time, work and money. Even the Beauty-and-the-Beast library could become a reality one day without the rich husband.
It's interesting how often we think of "rich husbands" whereas men rarely think, ah, my dreams will only come to fruition if I marry a rich woman. I guess, Rich-woman-making-your-dreams-come-true is not as embedded in the male psyche.
However, we women have a good excuse. Once upon a time, the vast majority of women couldn't work for more than subsistence wages, so our dreams rather did depend on husbands, who could always work and earn and inherit. (And once upon a time, women simply weren't allowed to own property: it all effectively belonged to their dads or brothers or husbands.)
If all our fairy tales are about poor but sympathetic women marrying wonderfully rich men, then we are going to think that's the way things are. But the truth is (and the sooner we learn this the better), femaleness is no bar to earning lots of money. In another universe, there was a 14 year old me in a guidance counsellors office saying "I'm great with words, and lousy with numbers. What should I study towards what career that will give me satisfaction, honour and enough money to buy a Victorian-build house and good shoes?"
I would like to have a long arm quilting machine and learn to do free motion quilting with it. I don't really think it's possible because my house is so small that I don't know where I could fit a long arm machine. So I am looking at a sit down mid-arm machine or perhaps just learning to use a domestic sewing machine for free motion quilting. But that's definitely a second choice because it's a different process and somewhat harder on the body I think.
--C. B.
P.S. It's been very interesting hearing everyone's responses.
I don't have any more dreams that don't involve getting married. I just want to get married. I'm working on library school and it's very nice and all that . . . I'm sure I will find it a career I enjoy much more than my prior one . . . but really, can I just get married already?
Ha! What about your profile description then? I see some great non-husband dependent stuff on there.
I sympathize about the wanting-husband-and-ten-kids dream, of course, although my mother can tell you personally that not all kids learn how to crochet afghans as easily as all that.
I dream about singing on Broadway...or somehow being part of the Church once again claiming her place as a serious patron of the arts. Sometimes I dream about being a saint. I often dream about being a hero to a lost soul of some kind. I used to dream about having a farm with lots of animals but I have allergies so now I just dream I might one day overcome my allergies :)
Goodness me, how comes I did not read THIS? My day is made: the Bodis Riper will be back! Put me down for at least three copies of whatever publication is planned.
My dreamy dream is to someday be proficient enough in a language that is attached to a country/culture/history that I like, and translate the greats of said language into English for the benefit of the wider world. Because I don't expect to make a living as a translator I would also like to teach English at a small Catholic school preferably in the country that I have learned the language of. I want to be the cool ESL teacher who inspires students to fearlessly express themselves in a new language...
I also dream of traveling off the beaten path to historic sites in said country that tourists usually don't know or care enough about.
These dreams could easily be shared with someone else, but just as easily be just for me. :)
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