Airstream summers

The other night I went to a spa party. Have you ever been to one? I never had. This spa party was about 6 girls gathered together at a place called Moondance Botanicals. In between applying cocoa face masks and drinking champagne, we all closed our eyes and made a wish and then shared our wishes. Everyone except me wished for some version of a country life. Each wish included the words farm, animals, garden.

I definitely have my own bucolic reverie. I am habitually conjuring my future with varying shades of wellington boots, messy ponytails, and chipped nail polish all set in a modernized farmhouse surrounded by pine trees and wildflowers.

There I am baking bread, barefoot, waving down a long dirt driveway. I dream of throwing huge parties where the guests stay in random Airstreams and tents that are scattered around the property (hopefully by a lake or pond). At these parties there is loud music blasting, tables lined with food, a trampoline, dogs...

Sometimes I have a coastal Maine vision. An open grassy field with an elevated wood-plank walkway that cuts trough from the gravel parking lot to the house. There might be a barn, boulders in random spots, a windmill? Other times I see vague images of the house from Housesitter with Goldie Hawn and Stever Martin, the one with a separate house for the bedroom.

Then there is the what-could-actually-happen-dream. In that dream I am surrounded by high ceilings and big windows. Hard wood floors made of wide beams. Somewhere a long and heavy wooden table. Lots of natural light, color, and a balance of open spaces and cozy. I want an entire cabinet filled with beautifully aged quilts for guests and for winter. I want a fire pole. I want an outdoor shower.

Isn't there a freedom to the country that you can't find anywhere else? I think that the silence of the country is what can be the most uncomfortable for people. Time has a different value when you are living closer to our historical human experience. The silence of seeing things differently. The weight of time lifted by the freedom to live the way one chooses. With or without a rowboat.