Choices

Ed and I took a nice drive this evening, enjoying the evening until dusk, me incessantly commenting on the purity of the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley and he agreeing, agreeably.  We live in such a beautiful place and, as I told him, while admiring the views along the twisting roads, seeing it and being out in it is nourishment for my soul.  Everything in me has always belonged in and to Virginia.  When I had to be away for so long a period in my life, I mourned each lost day and lost season, particularly autumn.  I felt stranded in a foreign place - never feeling a sense of home or belonging.  I planned and schemed and knew that one day I would return.  I longed to be here.  Everything here feels familiar to me. 

Traveling the winding roads tonight, admiring the purples of the redbuds and the snowy whites of the dogwoods as the sun sank and the shadows crept into the hills, I thought about how each time we take these back roads I long for us to own a farm.  I want chickens, cows, a red barn, a white fence.  I want an old farmhouse with nooks and crannies and a scary attic I won't go near at night.  I want white rocking chairs on a porch, pointing to a view of the mountains.  I want a bright kitchen with a big white sink and white cupboards, and a bouquet of Queen Anne's lace in a milk glass vase on the kitchen table.  I picture in this dream mahogany antiques and loads of books and collections of glass.  I want to work hard with my husband in a garden, tending both vegetables and flowers.  I want to work side by side with him, canning tomatoes and beans, and making jams for winter biscuits.  I want to bake pies with apples and peaches from our orchards, and read literary novels in the long winters by a warm fire.  I want to grow out my hair and let the silver take over, pinning it up in the day and letting it loose in the evening.  I want to wear sundresses and flip flops in the summer and thick sweaters and old jeans and muddy boots in the fall.  I want thick handmade quilts on our bed, and an exciting place for the grandchildren to visit that will live large in their memory long after we're gone as the place they most wanted to be as children.  I want this backdrop to practice the art of photography.  I want the challenge of capturing those shadowy shafts of light that fall in the bends of the roads and along the creek-beds. I want to photograph my husband's rough hands, stained with the black earth, resting on his mug of coffee, my wedding ring shining bright.

When we visit my favorite city, Washington, D.C., our nation's capital and my birthplace, I want to move there too.  I imagine us attending plays and visiting museums on weekends; searching the Post each Sunday morning for afternoon destinations and enjoying gourmet dinners in little known restaurants.  I want a small loft apartment with open spaces and lots of windows.  I want sparse modern furnishings, a big furry white rug, and no clutter.  I want to wear sophisticated linen slacks with crisp, white blouses in summer, and smart, tailored tweeds in the autumn.  I want to cut my hair chic and short, in a style that takes two seconds to flip into place each morning.  I want to explore history and art, drink wine in outdoor cafes in Georgetown and read poetry while lying on a blanket on the mall with my head in Ed's lap. I want to capture in moody, brooding photographs the architecture and the statues, the bridges and monuments, the cherry trees in full bloom.  I want to photograph my husbands hands wrapped around the thick covers of historical books.  I want to open this world to our grandchildren and make each of their visits a treasure hunt of knowledge and culture.

Those are the two opposing dreams I dream about on road trips around here when I let my imagination and my desires run free.  These are my secret lives, the ones I have always dreamed about but think maybe, somewhere along the line, I've become too old to realize.

You'd think with such dreams that I was unhappy with the life I have but, in fact, I've never been happier.  I can't imagine a finer view than the one of the Allegheny mountains we enjoy from our deck.  I can't imagine a better view of six or seven different firework displays on the fourth of July than those we enjoy from our front porch which overlook the Blue Ridge. I could not ask for a better marriage and I can't imagine a finer man with whom to share my grandchildren, and with whom to spend my days and nights and all the moments of my life.

I am blessed beyond measure.

I am ceaselessly grateful. 

Climbing into our big, tall bed each night and into a spoon with Ed, his thick arm supporting my neck and head, and his other wrapped tightly around me, his breath steady against my hair, I can't imagine a finer place to be.  I depend on his warmth.  I rely on his strength and his love.  Anywhere he is is home to me.

Any place we end up, I'm exactly where I've always longed to be.