Back to It

When I started this blog, I was having a hard time narrowing the scope of big dreams in the face of entering the real world. I think that now I'm having trouble widening the scope of where those dreams used to come from. So in 2016, I want to revisit them. I want to dream bigger and reach higher and see where I land by the end of all of it.

Today, I want to write books. I want to writes pages and pages of blissfully wordy prose and find my books tucked on shelves of friends and barnes and nobles and tiny little book nooks everywhere. I want my words to make a difference. I want them to inspire and incite.

Beachside Sweets Stand

When I grow up, I would like to set up shop near the beach with a tiny nook of a bakery. I can bake and listen to waves and weary families with sunburned fathers and fussy toddlers will flock to buy my cherry chocolate chip cookies to munch along their boardwalk trot to their hotels and rented houses along the shore. I will siesta in the sand in the afternoons and run along the waterfront in the evening with my bakery assistant, likely a Lab or a Large Poodle named Bert (but he's not allowed near the chocolate). It will be serene; it will be idyllic.

Graceful

When I grow up, I want to be able to be graceful. Balancing lattes, clutches, groceries, appointments and library books with a twinkle in my toes and a swing in my step. I'll tiptoe around my home and sashay in high heels down the sidewalk. Without falling. Maybe I'll even acquire some moves in the process. And it will be glorious.

Smart Girl

When I grow up, I want to create a safe space where girls can go and figure out what self esteem means and how to be awesome at being a girl. Amy Poehler and co. started this amazing initiative called Smart Girls at the Party and I was really inspired by the amount of positivity it is built upon. There is a deep, dark problem in the way girls and women relate to one another. Bullying, bad role modeling, and a lack of understandable or relatable feminist perspective about what it actually means to be a woman set girls up to be in a liminal, ill-defined female space and at risk for the perpetuation of these problems as grown-ups. The way the female body has been made into a political object in addition to a media object further clouds this issue with confusion for a girl coming to terms with a body and trying to be comfortable in her skin. I would like to find a way to to make a difference in this niche. I want to create a place where girls can relate and respect and tolerate and have opprtunities that they might not have in overcrowded classrooms, underfunded public schools, and within the restrictions of neighborhood boundaries. I want them to understand that feminism is more than what Katy Perry denounced on TV and I want them to be proud of their bodies and learn to use words other than "bitch" and "slut" when referring to one another. The young woman's bill of right's should include some basic knowledge of self-esteem and it needs to be instilled in every way possible in a world that is so eager and desperate to rip it apart. This project is lofty and involves many resources I certainly don't have, but here it is, whispering in my ear everytime I read that John Mayer is dating someone new or see tween girls waging tiny acts of verbal violence at one another on the bus downtown. I haven't figured out the baby steps yet; I'm still working backwards. But when I think about Belle and Kira and Tessa and Eloise and Zoey growing up in this current female climate, I find that my jump-to-action jumps up.

Leslie Knope

When I grow up, I want to be Leslie Knope. I want to match her level of enthusiasm and stick-to-it-iveness in all of my efforts to make good for people. I want to change the world, one small town hall meeting at a time, doing nothing by halves and smiling all the while. I'll charm the Ron Swansons and love the Ben Wyatts and beautiful Ann Perkinses and small town government life will be an amazing challenge to surmount.

A Green Thumb

When I grow up, I want to have a green thumb. I will grow herbs and flowers, nurture shrubbery and coax vines to crawl with purpose up trellises. There will be no fear that I might kill them all in one fell swoop. I'll make salads out of my vegetable garden; I'll water and feed and sing them to be the best they can be. And the garden will be green and lovely, with a little nook for reading and catching up or sharing M&Ms.

A Novelist

When I grow up, I want to be a novelist. I will spend quiet days tied to my computer, perfecting paragraph after paragraph of perfect prose. My editor will love it and my agent will be glad to have scored a copy first. After topping best-seller lists and becoming popular on Audible, the novel will inevitably be optioined for a film. I will adapt the screenplay myself, of course.