Hopes and Dreams

I sat at work today and had lots of ideas about what I wanted to say here. It was a cold day and not a lot of people were out on the street so there was a lot of time to think and do things like sort through another tin of buttons and knit half a hat. But walking home I realized that most of what I wanted to do was complain, except for one thought. So I decided that I want to share with you my secret dream for my future.

This is not necessarily a pragmatic dream but it is where I want to be five or six years from now. It is also something that I have wanted to do in some form for years. I want to live on a small farm where part of the facility is a retreat center. Where we can host health wellness and creativity retreats. I don't mean that we would be constantly assaulted with groups but maybe six weekends a year there could be a group staying with us who would focus on one of those areas. Nothing too new age-y just good for you pauses in life that people don't get very often.

Part of this plan will happen sooner when we open an online version of Seven Mountain (not the acupuncture part). The idea is that we might be making enough money between the three parts of the business that we could afford to hire someone to be at the shop five days a week, leaving me to do the online orders and be with Alder at home on this someday farm.

A lot of this is rooted back in the reasons that I started CITY (creative independent teaching for youth) back in Denver. I don't want to be a teacher, but I want to help connected people, and kids especially, with creativity in a non school setting. I would never want to host classes from city schools or anything like that but I would love to have families from these same schools come together for these weekends.

Of course when Kevin and I talk about this we joke that we would end up renting space out for weddings by default (no I do not want to have destination weddings in my back yard, unless they are willing to get married on the compost pile). But when we talk about our future there is always an aspect of being integrated in the community. I could see renting out the space for very reasonable rates for local groups to use and to donate the space for nonprofits to use.

This is all integrated into our whole life dream that includes educating Alder ourselves in a very rich environment. Rather than searching out bits and pieces of the community of learners I would rather start cultivating it now. Of course it would be nice if I could have a moments rest where I could sit down and introduce him to play-dough (that's on the table for tomorrow).

All of these dreams are starting though, we are going to use some of the walls at Seven Mountain as a gallery sometimes and we are having our first artists show in January, Patti Williams and her 50 paintings. Like a garden this dream needs a lot of gentle tending.

I hope you all out there have your own dreams to nurture.

warmly,
Stacey