things we'd like to experience for ourselves
I'm thoroughly enjoying your answers to what book world you'd like to enter. I love that there are things we'd like to change (Beth's untimely death, Heathcliff's sadness, Gilbert's tragic white face when silly, ridiculous Anne rejects his proposal even though we all know he's the only boy for her) but deep down we know our favorite books wouldn't be the same with our changes. My friend "WidneyWoman" suggested I add a book recommendations list to my website, and I love that idea. So you might see that begin to pop up one of these days.
I've always wanted to start a blog with this sentence: In a former life, I was a hermit. I have this intense love for (every now and then) having the whole house all to myself. When I'm at a party, I like to slip away to a quiet room now and then and take in the happiness of the crowded noises far away but otherwise find my own thoughts again. And sometimes I think that if I was all alone all the time, I would eventually think out the answers to everything.
The truth is - that's all craziness. I relish alone time now because the rest of my days and moments are loud and giggly and filled with boys (big and little). And no one comes to all the answers all alone. I firmly believe we need to bump up against others' thoughts and ideas in order to reach complete ones. So, it's only in those sudden alone and quiet moments when I think it would be nice to experience living in some mountain cabin somewhere alone, from which I would only emerge now and then to go to town for supplies (i.e., more pen and paper (Oh, the writing I'd do!!), and to set the locals talking about lovely, mysterious me.
However, there are other things I truly would like to one day experience for myself. Exhibit A: The streets of New York City. There's a little part of me that believes I really could have lived there (you know, in another life), worked there, even raised children there. ("Sarah Jessica Parker is doing it!") And I want to at least visit there and find out for myself if I'm insane. (I want to try cupcakes a la Katie Holmes, a Gray's Papaya hot dog (from Fools Rush In) and find a used bookstore I like and visit the part of Central Park that matches the picture Charity took recently and which now sits on my desktop. (You can see the tall buildings just over the green, leafy trees).
I also think I could have been a world traveler. The 17-year-old me would disagree. But I've changed on that. And now I picture myself in Ireland - with no purpose at all; Paris, Venice, and Greece for all the things you hear about and know exist but really want to see for yourself; and third world countries to visit the orphanages I'm supporting with my independent wealth and the hundreds of children I'm sponsoring through World Vision. The full extent of that traveling is a little beyond my means, my time allowances, and my husband's agreement - in this lifetime. But I still feel determined to visit more places like that before I die. I believe discovering beautiful Ireland, exploring Paris once, and embracing for myself the intense need of children across the world - I believe all that would change me. And I want to experience it for myself.
One more for me - and then it's your turn. Prince Edward Island. I definitely want to experience for myself what Lover's Lane really looked like and what a walk to school would have truly been. And what it sounds like to live near the shore. And why in the world Anne hated November so much.What about you? What do you hope to one day experience for yourself?