A Perfect Day...

If I could have a perfect day, I know it would begin in the soft gold of the rising of the sun. There would be a slight breeze coming in from the open window. My alarm would go off, but not with the irritating buzzing that most alarms do. It would be music welcoming me back into the real world. I'd stretch and slowly open my eyes to the soft colors in the bedroom: greens the color of new buds, ivory paint on the walls, and the solid warm browns of my wooden furniture. The woven grass rug under my feet prickles just a bit, forcing an awakening to begin throughout my body, and the sleep to lift itself away.

I'd walk into the bathroom, and after relieving myself, step into the shower. If I could have the perfect shower, it would be a rather large thing that I had constructed tile by tile. The edges wouldn't be cut at all, as most tiles are to fit the form of the room they inhabit. I would take pieces of broken ceramics and build the puzzle into the corners. I think I'd tile the whole room except for the ceiling, merely because it would be consistent and waterproof. The floors would be a tan, the walls a transition between gold and cerulean, and the ceiling a soft white. For shelving, I'd make recessed alcoves in the walls. My sink would be a faucet and a simple bowl. Most of the water that generally pours into the sewer system I'd divert for my own usage, to water the grass and the garden outside.

After breakfast in the small kitchen that's more like an afterthought than the center of my home, I enter my studio. I do some yoga, and open the windows. This studio space is the biggest part of my home, but it doesn't seem cluttered. The shelving that I built to store my supplies goes all the way up to the wall, and covered with clean white doors with simple grooves routed into their edges for handles. When you close them all up, it's like a wall. My furniture is very simple. I splurged on an Ikea sleeper sofa and two loungechairs. Underneat them is an array of colorful carpet squars from Flor. There is one piece of art on the wall behind the sofa, and it is enormous. There are several sources of lighting around the room, mostly functional, some translucent and one, another piece of art. I turn to the easel, and paint for a few hours before I hear another alarm, signaling that I have to get myself out and off to work in the real world. Ironically, I have no idea what this work will be, since right now at this point in my life, I am unemployed and undergoing soul-searching to see what would be a good option for an artist with an open mind like myself. For the meantime, it is good to think on it.

I have a lot of patience, and would probably be a fair teacher, but at the same time I doubt myself as an authority figure. And also, I can imagine what it would be like trying to share my excitement about art to unenthused students who would rather be doing anything else.

I could go a totally different route, and aim to become an art therapist. However, anything involving therapy also involves pain that causes an individual to seek treatment, and I don't know if I have the courage to empathize with emotional distress on a daily basis. I don't know how to react to anger, and generally when confronted, I freeze. I get quiet. I run away. It would require a lot of growth on my part to resolve my own past and heal before I could even try to heal someone else with art and self-expression.

I could do the commercial art routine, which also concerns me. Would creating someone else's vision blur my enthusiasm for expressing my own?

Or, I could do something totally different from all of those things and become a massage therapist. I like to rub people. Physical pains I can handle, and overcome. I could teach yoga, like a lot of people do. I think I've been subconsciously doing it for a long time, maybe even since I was a kid. I could do something in the healthcare industry, like sterilizing medical tools.

After I get doing whatever it is that I do for a living, I return home. I'd like to live in an area where I do not need to own a car, either because the public transit system is so good, or because all areas I need to go to on a daily basis are accessible on a bicycle. I'd also like this place to be more of a dry climate than a humid one, near mountains, if possible. It doesn't have to be a big city, but it would be nice if it had a lot of sidewalks. I don't like it when sidewalks disappear abruptly, only to reappear on the other side of the street. It is the silliest thing I've ever come across, and very inconsiderate to pedestrians...

I don't know who will be waiting for me at home. Perhaps I'll still be married at this time, or perhaps we'll recognize that our paths went their separate ways awhile ago...who knows. I don't know if I'll keep a pet. I'd like to, but they also take the same type of commitment to nurture. Right now, there's a lot of things that I want to experience, and I feel stuck in a place and a routine that just doesn't reflect who I am. I don't feel the connection to the land I once did, and I am very dissatisfied. He knows how I feel, and it seems that our financial burdens/obligations are preventing us from creating an actual plan to move past this swamp. I don't know what we're waiting for, to be honest. Godot, maybe. A sign of which way we should go.

Someday, things will be different. I want them to change for the better. I want to live for myself, and not to be the enabler that I am. It sure feels like I'm all alone out here, unemployed and nearing the end of my benefits. It's hard to wait...and I have been keeping busy in between bouts of temporary work. I like work. I'd love work if it stimulated my creative senses. I love to learn new skills. I love getting to know interesting, intelligent individuals. I miss my social outlet that existed in my old job, even though I knew that it was the wrong career for me to pursue. I was working in a small cafe, and because of a complaint, I feel that I was made an example out of not to be 'rude' to new customers. However, in my defense, I feel that my manager was totally incapable of handling that situation with a rational mind, seeing as she had had three hours of sleep that day and was attempting to work a 12 hour shift.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a lot of character, and if I say something that sounds slightly sarcastic, it's my sense of humor. It sure didn't translate in that situation.

There were two things I took away from that job. I learned the value of hospitality that leaves a customer feeling uplifted and refreshed, which may be a useful skill in the future. I learned that a witty one-line opener can startle people out of their shells, and coax a smile out of their busy lives.

My favorite will always be: "Would you like a double entendre with that?"