If you could live anywhere

There is a small community living in matching blue townhouses in the fields nearby.  Their homes are surrounded by overgrown gardens; vegetables, herbs and flowers growing unrestrained like small patches of wilderness, and tall grass in between where the children come out to play in the late evening hours.  There is the smell of smoke and baking from the nearby cafeteria, and the smell of livestock from the surrounding fields: horses, goats, sheep, and free-range chickens.  

I like to go past here on my evening runs and pretend it's where I live.

I am increasingly drawn to the idea of living in a commune.  I like to imagine it a bit like the John Campbell Folk School in the North Carolina mountains; just a bunch of honest, down-to-earth people with creative instincts.  The kind of place that values an organic, active lifestyle, big families, and artistry, that respects and cultivates nature.

A place to live simply and peaceably, with my coffeehouse downstairs, and off-hours to learn things like planting and harvesting, baking, black-smithing, welding, bee-keeping, so on. Weekend Farmer's Markets bringing in tourists from the nearby town. Evening celebrations with bonfires and contra dance, live music and stories. Late nights out in the open, to revel in that distinct feeling of being under a big, clear sky at the end of a long day of work, when everything feels so honest, so good, so alive.

A place that lets nomads be nomads, coming and going as they feel the need.

I love the idea of having regulars in my coffeehouse - people I know by name, who don't even have to order because I know what they drink, who will sit at the bar and tell me their stories.

Well. A girl can dream.

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