A nice thing…

Beyond the house and the adjoining barn is the fire pit where we and friends gather on occasion. Beyond the fire pit is the cabana or, as I slummily call it,  “the shack in the back.” My husband designed and built the cabana last year when I suggested we could use a screened room to prevent the mosquitos from carrying us away. This is no ordinary screened room. It is big-beamed and gorgeous. It’s a piece of custom furniture you can sit in. My husband took my thought and ran with it, creating a space for dreaming and drinking and napping.

A friend of mine thought this phenomenon was amazing. I spoke a thing, and it got built. Sadly, I had to bring my friend back to reality by pointing out our hodge-podge bathroom and sagging porch.

My mind conjures all sorts of things that I haven’t yet created. I imagine the perfect garden and all of things would go into it, shoving aside all ideas of what should go into it. I’d plant sensible things like vegetables, only if they didn’t take too much care; lovely things like flowers, only if they could be cut and shared. If I could conjure them, there would be fairies. If I could construct it, there would be an arbor, and a stone bench nook for reading, and… and… and…

All of these things, from the cabana, to the fire pit, to the imagined garden, are “would“ things rather than “should” things. The kind of things that are necessary for the business of truly living a life.

A nice thing…  the necessity of “would” things, and giving ourselves the permission to both dream and realize them.