Wish List, continued

• Homesteader abilities in a vaulted-ceiling house. Stretching homemade mozzarella, white and rubber0band tough, pulling tart strands into loping braids. The pungent scent of fermenting yeast and leafy hops from a glass vat in the basement; stirring powdered alchemy with a giant spoon into ales and hefeweizens.
• A large wooden sewing table, a brass foot pedal and a hidden machine, folding up out of the oak panel and centuries past. The rhythmic connection between tapping foot and needle, both dancing up and down into delicate white scars across a landscape of gingham, jersey, denim, cotton.
• Non-leather bound, complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Endless cycle of new shoes, especially kitten heels, pull-on boots, wrap-around canvas sandals, peep toes, and the ability to walk flawlessly in all of them.
• Room enough for all those shoes.
• The Elements of Style by Strunk & White, foolishly discarded back to the college bookstore, the semester I switched from a Journalism major to Creative Writing.
• A coffee shop with one exposed brick wall, full of cycling local art--black and white photographs, mixed-media collages--where they know my name and that my favorite drink is a chai latte. A wide, sidewalk-facing window lined with bar stool, where I will watch the foot traffic, local characters in flannel, cowboy boots, chiffon dresses or Amish, strolling down the sunny small-town Main Street whenever I need a distraction from the notebook in front of me.
• Any kind of boat, preferably a fast one. It sounds terribly pretentious, but I cannot resist any creation that may move me closer to the shifting, time-fluid water, that would allow me to float out across the waves, into oblivion.
• Sepia-toned, standing globe, balanced on polished mahogany haunches. Country names in thin gold filigree, tiny papier-mache mountains for my fingers to trace in Siberia, Nepal, Colorado, Chile.
• Endless frequent flyer miles, for the places I must see again (the Grand Canyon, Rome), the places I want to show him (the Eiffel Tower, Venetian canals, Monet's gardens at Giverny) and the multitude of places I fear I will never have the time to see even once (Costa Rican jungles, Amsterdam and Holland tulips, the beach cliffs of the Peruvian Andes, Great Pyramids, Irish pubs, Vancouver winters, Mexican honeymoon sunsets)...
• A clothesline in a wide, rolling green backyard.
• Just a rope, hanging a single tire, from a single tree, in my own front yard.
• A simpler time.