A Soggy Season Ignites Ideas

This has been a long spring. The rain started in March and stopped less than 2 weeks ago. All the outdoor work I usually have done by Memorial Day is getting done now … and there is a lot of it. Every spare minute I’m out there power washing decks, pulling weeds, mulching, touching up paint, mowing, trimming trees … well, you get the idea. I usually look forward to this work, but that is when it’s spread over a couple months.

Henry Wallace, Secretary of Ag and the US Vice President a long time ago, once said, “gardeners never die, they have to live to see what comes up in the spring.” That’s me. Every spring I’m out scouting the gardens waiting for the fresh new growth to greet me. This year, I squiged my way out to the gardens, stood there in the pouring rain, and nothing looked back!

So this got me thinking about how I spend my time, and that lead to an idea. Now, whenever I say to Tim, “I’ve had a thought,” he gets that oh-no-what-is-it-this-time look. So, I smiled sweetly and said, “I think we should sell the house, buy a bus, outfit it like a smallish … okay real tiny home, and hit the road. Write and play music, meet people, see the country.” During the split second while his jaw was dropped and words couldn’t form, I jumped back in. “We spend every spare minute working on the house. That’s hardly a dream, American or otherwise.”

“What about your airjet baths,” he asked. “What about your Viking kitchen?” Well yes, I MAY be attached to those particular luxuries. But he didn’t out-and-out say no.

This week I have sent Tim several e-mails, most of them referenced a Flower Power bus in his future, or the Partridge Family. He’s half-heartedly humoring me, pretending to go along, but afraid I’m serious. “Just what I need, to become a hippie at 56,” he said. I could think of worse things you could become at 56.

So all this leaves me with a few questions: Can I walk away from my home and my life as I know it in pursuit of simplification? If I simplify, will I spend more time on the “fun” stuff or fill the void with some new tasks? How do two people pursue their vastly different dreams when one of those dreams is to also be together? Looks like I’ve got a little more thinking to do.

Dawnya