Dreaming

Lately, I've begun to imagine a new future for myself and the people I love. A little voice tells me it is worth it to pay attention to when, where and how these visions occur, since most of the time, I'm just living day to day. Like most people trying to balance work, kids, bills, schedule conflicts, friends, and intimacy (not to mention baseball) I rarely have time to dream about the future.

The first element of being able to dream again seems to be having someone to share that dream with. I remember all the dreams my wife and I shared from the ages of 20 to 40. Many of them centered on living on tropical islands, and we were able to do so, part-time, as we raised our three kids partly in San Francisco and partly (2-3 months per year) on Sanibel Island, Florida.

The demands of careers, education, political and community involvements, and the children's own social networks dictated that the Bay Area remain the center of our family's geographic focus. It is ironic to me, at least, that of all five of us, I am the only one remaining in San Francisco. Laila and Loic live in Santiago, Chile; Sarah and Larry are in Portland (University of Oregon Med School), Peter leaves soon for Pasadena (Cal Tech PhD program in neuroscience); Alison lives in Washington, D.C.

My second wife lives a mile away, on Bernal Heights. Our little kids shuttle back and forth. Mom's House, Dad's House. They seem to love this.

This summmer has been a monster-sized learning process for me, as I recovered from a series of painful losses, and created a new lifestyle. An act as simple as putting up a basketball hoop drew in dozens of people, mainly kids, who rarely visited before. We may have had more parties and barbecues in two months' time than in the previous two years.

Work, meanwhile, has escalated into a fast-paced experience more in line with the early days of HotWired and Salon. I love working hard on things that are stimulating, like almost anything involving content and technology is these days. It's exciting to see the emergence of a newly connected world and the opportunities that presents. This is the age of the networked entrepreneur.

My vision of a future starts with the ability to periodically host everyone in my extended network of family and friends. I like how it feels to have a lot of people coming and going, with me pretty much a stable object at home base, most of the time. The vision continues to include growing flowers and vegetables and fruits. In other words, it is a semi-agricultural environment or at least a large gardening environment that I seek.

With me, in this vision, is a partner -- lovely, gentle, committed to me as I am to her, somebody who values language and writing as much as I do, or who brings other creative pursuits (art, design, culture) to the party.

This may all seem like a simple dream for the future. I assume I will keep workming well into my 70s, if I can, in order to continue to generate resources to support my children. In less than five months, I am slated to become a grandfather. He's a boy!

I'd love my "work" in the future, when I'm old, to revolve around writing like in this blog -- semi-biographical story telling -- if I ever figure out how to monetize it. Living where I do, this vision implies financial resources, not all of which are readily apparent to me at this point in time.

One last piece, and that is travel. I want to start taking trips again. It's been over four months since I visited New York; seven months since Biloxi, thirteen months since Hawaii, ninewteen since Mexico. First, baby steps. I've resolved this weekend to drive out of the city, which I did once before this summer, to somewhere that is hot and quiet, somewhere not unlike the vision I've had for my future.

Though it may be true that none of the pieces I need are in place yet -- the money, the free time, the land, let alone the partner -- at least the dream is emerging. Maybe the others will follow in time...