destinations – Michael Seidel, writer

Daily writing prompt

Write about your dream home.

I’ve almost lived in my dream home a few times. That whole personal paradigm of what a dream home is changes with time.

Living in Germany off base in a little town called Waldorf, I was quite happy. Up on the fifth floor, we had nice views and were short walks to some sweet cafes, bakeries, and gasthauses. The drive to the base was short. Not much traffic was encountered on a typical day until I reached the gate, so there was no frustrations or irritations associated with driving. Frankfurt itself, with all that it offered was just down the autobahn. The train or the autobahn easily took us other places, not just in Germany, but across Europe. It was wonderful.

But I rotated ‘home’, to the United States. Home was now Onizuka Air Station, previously known as Sunnyvale Air Station, in Sunnyvale, California. After living in an apartment in Sunnyvale, I moved to base housing. Then I retired from the military and lived in a Mountain View duplex on a cul-de-sac. But my wife and I noticed that we often spent time when we weren’t working in Half Moon Bay, California. So we found a place there, a beautiful townhome just a mile from the beach.

Half Moon Bay was a wonderful town. Our place was just a six minute walk from downtown and its plethora of restaurants, shops, cafes, and stores. We were in heaven for a while there.

But it’s Half Moon Bay, a small place. We still worked in San Mateo, Redwood City, Mountain View. Besides work, we needed to venture up Highway 92 and ‘over the hill’ to do shopping. The traffic there was bad and getting worse.

Then our housing association started going crazo. They began more stringent with the rules while increasing the HOA dues. We were soon paying almost a thousand a month for that and climbing.

So we moved here, to Ashland, in southern Oregon. The town initially offered a lot of promise but the promise has faded. We also know that, gosh, we miss that ocean. So, we want to move again.

To where? Well, probably the east coast in the U.S. Maybe to Europe. Perhaps Canada. Or South America. I want a small town with interesting stores and cafes, good food, and a sense of community. It’s a place where I can walk for coffee, food, beer, books. I’d also like to be by the sea and the churning, interesting facets it throws at my mind and senses. Will I find my dream home?

I don’t know. I think I’m still trying to dream it up.

There I am, in a bathroom with George Clooney. We’re dressed in matching outfits: tight white shorts that end in mid-thigh, black knee-high socks, and blue Oxford shirts open at the collar.

I’m watching us from one side. That perspective never changes. The bathroom doesn’t have a fourth wall because we’re on a movie set. Clooney is filming and waiting to go out, and I’m sitting on the commode with the seat down, reading a book. He’s doing a series of scenes that requires him to go out, react to something or throw off a one-liner, and then return. We speak between scenes but I have no idea what was said.

The dream was about that quick, too. With a flick of the dream selector, I was now on another set. On this one, a woman in a sparkling silver suit escorted me to a man in a tuxedo at a control panel. Behind us was a huge wall of large monitors.

I was in a spotlight. The impression that I had was that I was on a television game show, which confused me. I asked about it, and the man and woman clarified, “No, this is your dream selection headquarters.”

Between the two of them working as a team, I was told, “What kind of dream would you like tonight? Prophecy, zombies, monsters, disasters, school, alien interaction, offbeat humor, adventure or thriller episodes, something mysterious or new-age? Name it, we have everything.”

My confusion remained too deep for a quick response. I needed to validate what I thought was happening. “I’m in a dream but in this dream, you’re giving me the option of choosing what to dream?”

The man and woman laughed. The woman said. “You act like you’ve never been here before.”

“Have I?”

“You come here every night,” she said.

The man said, “Yes, usually several times.”

“Why I don’t remember that?”

The man said, “It’s your dream. You decide what to forget.”

I was left then thinking about my recent streak of dreams. They’d been of the episodic adventure type. Sometimes I’m not even apparently in them but watch as others act and react. Then I asked, “If I can choose what to dream, why have I made the dream decisions that I did?”

Looking amused, the man and woman shrugged. “What can I say?” the man said. “They’re your dreams. You decide where you go.”

Dream end.

Tag: destinations

Just A Dream

The Selection Dream

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