Going Without

I want to be Amish. I want to add spice to my traveling routine by alternating between a bicycle and a scooter. I want to have a little girl-- and not worry about what TV personality is telling her she's too fat, she's too poor. I want to work with my hands and make bread, grow herbs, brush horses, nail boards. I would love to live this way for--oh let's say...a weekend.










Then I want cable. I want heated water and the warming blue-glow of the Internet Explorer. I want to blow dry the kink out of my bangs. I want to let my fancy toothbrush do its fine job. I want to fall asleep to the sweet white noise of the cartoon network.



The Amish I creepily stalked this weekend in Intercourse/ Bird in Hand Pennsylvania were a thing of majesty to me. I crept up beside a gaggle of teens in three buggies parked at Costco...and took photos of their cavity filled horses. I scanned the internet looking for information on the oh-so exotic sounding "Rumpsringa"---or the Amish answer to the middle-class "undergraduate experience." http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/may/amish/





I guess we all want to get out of wherever we are for a bit. We count down the days till the arrival of whatever our employer deems to be our Sabbath. It is easy to romanticize the idea of reading by candlelight in a dress you know will fit, and not having to think about how it looks.

Then remember how delicious it is to choose what you are reading, where you are reading, and why. I curled up last night with a copy of "Fancy Beasts" (a challenging and brisssssk poetry collection by Alex Lemon) http://www.brooklinebooksmith-shop.com/search/apachesolr_search/fancy+beasts and my energy efficient light bulb. I cranked on my energy-saver air conditioning and drifted off into a comfortable, modern, convenient sleep.