My Dream Life at 20

I used to run. Not because I liked it, but for other reasons. I would run up and down Dingle Ridge Road. It was the Main Drag to our house. Dingle Ridge Road runs from Rt 6 on the Putnam county side to 121 on the Westchester county side.

When I ran, I would listen to my walkman. It weighed about half a pound, and played my cassette tapes. I would make these tapes from songs on the radio. When I was in college, I discovered WXCI, the WestConn radio station that played alternative rock. Ministry, Depeche Mode, Sex Pistols, just crazy random stuff. A song called Black Slacks by Robert Gordon, Belly of a Whale by Effigy, Slang Teacher by Wide Boy Awake, The Polecats - Make a Circuit with Me....

Dingle Ridge was this country road, parts of it unpaved. It had a KILLER hair pin curve. Any teen unlucky enough to have to learn to drive on a car with a standard transmission (my brother John, for instance) had not truly learned to drive until they could make it up this curve without stalling. There were woods on both sides of the road, trees arching over the road providing shade, but killing all air movement in the summer. I can still smell the hot tar of the blacktop, hear the cicadas, feel the heat coming off of the road. I would run on the hill side down to a particular telephone pole on the left (going downhill). I used to know the exact number on that pole, but can't remember it now. Then turn, and run up the hill back to the Putnam side, down to the old dutch mile marker.

In my imagination, I would think about what my life would be like one day. In my imagination, I could see this as plain as day... I would live in Vermont. Why Vermont? I don't know, but the road that I lived on in Vermont looked an awful lot like Dingle Ridge Road... My house was white, siding with green shutters. A huge lot but not too huge, maybe an acre. All flat, house sitting square in the middle. A stone wall in front along the street. Vegetable garden in the back. Two black labrador retrievers. Surrounded by trees - green everywhere. In my imagination, I lived there alone. Just me and the dogs. I can't remember much about the inside of the house, except it was old, with wood floors. I do remember my idea of the upstairs though - one room at the top of the stairs, more like an attic space. This room was a library - wood panelled, bookcases filled with books, just dusty and old enough, a big sunny window with an armchair and footstool, kind of a salmon color, with a paisley throw blanket...the perfect room. Dark enough in the summer, bright enough in the winter, cozy enough in the rain. Quiet. A couple of times, I tried to lay out on paper what the floorplan of this house would be, but i could never get past the library. That room - I could see as plain as if I had grown up there.

That was this crazy, endorphine fueled idea of what my life would be like. Why do I mourn this dream so? Why do I wonder if that life is still possible? Why do I mourn so many dreams instead of embracing what I have here and now? What a waste of time. Just let it go.