June 24, 2002.
The Purest Kind of Want


This push-pull relationship with modern culture is both annoying and intoxicating. It's hard to toe that line day after day, being both repulsed and compelled by the desire to "keep up" with fashion, music, film, and books. Isn't it exhausting? One day you're drooling over new auto trends (and considering launching a full-fledged campaign to acquire a new Mini). The next, you're dreaming about moving into the country, driving a rusted-out pickup truck with three gears and an old radio with big silver buttons.

All that money, you know, that money that's lovingly dumped into the jaws of the Big Engine of American Desire, does have an effect. I can't walk into Target and not be beguiled by the bright signage and the cheerful lighting. I can't scoff at everything in the J. Crew catalog, even if I am sure that their clothes are little more than hastily-constructed sweatshop rags. All that money does talk, and I listen.

Boy, I'm starting to sound like a real Greenpeace gal.

All that stuff, though, it has a price. The price for that breathtaking, sexy new Mini may be five years of your life, spent working at a job that you don't really like, a job that doesn't really like you.

The Big Engine of American Desire pours off toxic byproducts. Discontent and confusion and longings that are not really ever going to be fulfilled. It's a mess.

Tom and I have two cars. Right now, they are both paid off. I drive a definitely-less-than-mint 1994 Honda with stained cloth seats and plenty of scratches and dents on every panel.

I used to think that it would be great to "upgrade" to a new car once we had that one paid off. But now, now that it's done, I just want to drive it into the ground, until it's an embarrassment, drive it until its wheels fall off. I don't want to donate any more of my life to the Big Engine of American Desire.

What I really want seems to be only the purest things that life can offer.

Right now, here is what I want.

I want to wake up when the sun comes up (not when the alarm tells me to). And I don't want to belong to a gym; I want all of outdoors to be the gym.

I want to work really hard on some really demanding project until I'm sweaty and sore. Maybe banging nails into boards, or polishing floors, or pulling weeds. I want to accomplish something good that will endure, that will help other people. Something physical would be great.

I want to read really good books and have the time to explore them and ponder them. I want to scribble random notes and questions in the margins of the books and then I would like to discuss the questions with other people who have also read the books.

I want to write really long letters on heavy cream-colored paper with real ink pens, and mail them off with real stamps to my friends in other states.

I want to prepare real, sit-down meals that are full of nourishing and colorful foods. And bake breads in an oven. (See, the thing about ovens is, they cook your food really slowly.) And if my friends and I can talk about books and events while we dine on the real, sit-down meal, then, so much the better.

I want to scratch a friendly dog behind the ears, and walk in the woods with him.

And I would like to be able to count the stars at night, and point out the constellations, and watch fireflies.

Right now, that is really what I am after.