Instead of taking the two hour trip for a glazed ham in Connecticut, I’m spending Easter simultaneously crouched on the couch and stealing glances out of our version of a picture window.
It’s a beautiful day for April, for New York. And each moment inside resonates with a grating nag.
You’re wasting the day.
But past my cotton pajama pants and quilt-covered lap is the Travel Channel, and it’s playing a special on the world’s greatest ranches.
Sprawling expanses, ginger horses grazing, great wood doors with brass knockers, a canopy of trees, lapis lazuli pools dotted with sun-drenched rocks, deep Jacuzzi style bathtubs with roaring fireplaces and a real picture window, one that opens into a basin of green.
Some are log cabins at the mountain’s point, heavy with antiques, oak paneling, copper fixtures. Others are low, dry spots in the valley, sporting sweeped dirt jumping arenas, clay courts, and man-made lakes.
It’s giving me a case of the gimmes. Some people lust after cars, jewels, chalets, penthouses and blanched mansions. I want a ranch at the end of a mile-long driveway with as many fireplaces as code allows. Somewhere close to a cold rushing river where I’ll wear duck boots and learn to cast a suitable line. Where I can make use of those childhood riding lessons and July spent grooming and mucking, and care for a horse of my own.
Sweet solitude, and open air. Strumming guitar, wood-burning oven and days wide and bright. There’s just something about that ranch ideal that calls to me. Where everything seems limitless, infinite, and smells like summer.
Of course, back-breaking work in a place far from the theater, boutiques, and bars of the bustling city is not for most people. If I do end up getting out there, I may find that it’s entirely not for me. But the ranches on the show are just so beautiful, so magical, it makes me think and wonder what if.
I hope that there is no limit to the number of lives I can live in one. I hope that I can be a city dweller, a country bumpkin, a writer, a cosmopolitan, a world-traveler, a doer, a do-gooder, a mediocre surfer, a wife, mother, and finally, a fat and happy grandmother all this time around. Because I want them all, and I’m nearing a quarter century old, and I have so much more life to live that sometimes it seems hard to articulate just how to do it all.
I wonder if there’s purpose to my ruminations and my desires. The only thing I can hold strong to is this.
I must have been meant to live all that I dream, or else I wouldn’t dream.
It’s a beautiful day for April, for New York. And each moment inside resonates with a grating nag.
You’re wasting the day.
But past my cotton pajama pants and quilt-covered lap is the Travel Channel, and it’s playing a special on the world’s greatest ranches.
Sprawling expanses, ginger horses grazing, great wood doors with brass knockers, a canopy of trees, lapis lazuli pools dotted with sun-drenched rocks, deep Jacuzzi style bathtubs with roaring fireplaces and a real picture window, one that opens into a basin of green.
Some are log cabins at the mountain’s point, heavy with antiques, oak paneling, copper fixtures. Others are low, dry spots in the valley, sporting sweeped dirt jumping arenas, clay courts, and man-made lakes.
It’s giving me a case of the gimmes. Some people lust after cars, jewels, chalets, penthouses and blanched mansions. I want a ranch at the end of a mile-long driveway with as many fireplaces as code allows. Somewhere close to a cold rushing river where I’ll wear duck boots and learn to cast a suitable line. Where I can make use of those childhood riding lessons and July spent grooming and mucking, and care for a horse of my own.
Sweet solitude, and open air. Strumming guitar, wood-burning oven and days wide and bright. There’s just something about that ranch ideal that calls to me. Where everything seems limitless, infinite, and smells like summer.
Of course, back-breaking work in a place far from the theater, boutiques, and bars of the bustling city is not for most people. If I do end up getting out there, I may find that it’s entirely not for me. But the ranches on the show are just so beautiful, so magical, it makes me think and wonder what if.
I hope that there is no limit to the number of lives I can live in one. I hope that I can be a city dweller, a country bumpkin, a writer, a cosmopolitan, a world-traveler, a doer, a do-gooder, a mediocre surfer, a wife, mother, and finally, a fat and happy grandmother all this time around. Because I want them all, and I’m nearing a quarter century old, and I have so much more life to live that sometimes it seems hard to articulate just how to do it all.
I wonder if there’s purpose to my ruminations and my desires. The only thing I can hold strong to is this.
I must have been meant to live all that I dream, or else I wouldn’t dream.
9 comments:
Fantastic post, K.
You can do it all but leave out the fat in grandmother because you'll need your energy by then to keep up. Wouldn't you rather be a "hot" grandmother?
I say, screw it and be a fat grandmother. I love food too much to not just want to give into every food whim and desire I have in me.
As far as the ranch dream goes, it is alot of work, and it's not for most people, but if you keep it small, a horse or two or maybe three, you will have time to enjoy it instead of just cleaning stalls all the time.
Jae
isn't it amazing how young 25 is, but how old it feels in terms of everything you want to accomplish. I too sometimes feel as though I'm wasting a day when I sit around and do nothing. But then it hits me how young I really am and that God willing, I still have a lot of time to be everything I want to be, so I should take the time to enjoy what I am right now.
Great post.
Ahh...is there anything better than spending a sunny Spring day on couch? Trust me. This ends when parenthood starts. Take advantage of ALL those lazy days!
By the way, I think you'll find that if you put your mind to it, you really can do it all. I hope to live many different lives during the course of my lifetime also.
Hi K. CD again. Great post. I forwarded it to my ex-steady. She's often plagued by "the gimmes" as well.
I just found your blog via a mutual friend(Stephanie Klein), and as a west coast kid who has horses in the middle of nowhere, I understand the desire for being on a ranch. But believe me-wait until you have seen everything else that you want to see, becuase you will embrace the simplicity with a much gentler hand. I turn 30 in August, am a student, and if I did not have 3 horses to take care of every day and 3 others to take care of ocassionally, I would watch the travel channel too and plan to have 3 horses when I was a little older and more traveled.
Great post-Maybe my "gimmies" are directed in another direction. I also tend to think that for me, the grass is always greener on the other side.
yes - a girl after my own heart:) The "days wide and bright" part is brilliant. Traveling out west, that was exactly how it felt. A couple years ago I stayed in a motel on Route 66 a bit past Flagstaff, sort of middle-of-nowhere-y. I still daydream about a life out there one day...
Living in England the ranch thing is not the same here. Many people have a dream of owning a little farm with a few animals etc. But that's not for me - I have to be honest I much prefer living in a town. I like everything close at hand too much.
Great post thanks.
Post a Comment