I want to live somewhere with a view. I want to walk into a tiny mountain cabin or Parisian hotel room or ramshackle beach house, unpack the one tiny suitcase I brought with me, push open a set of wooden shutters and have the breath violently and passionately yanked from my lungs.
I want to own nothing. I want to be attached to no material thing in this world. I want to have no obligation to a thing that feels no obligation toward me. I want to know that when I leave this world my children will have one medium-sized duffel-bag of dingy white t-shirts and pants with saggy bottoms to fight over.
I want to be a fisherman, sleeping in a hammock strung up in the rigging on a rickety boat manned by a group of salty sea-dogs who are only too happy to keep things moving ahead without any interference from me.
I want to spend the rest of my life sitting on a shady front porch whittling a hunk of wood into whatever, watching the neighborhood happen in front of me, sipping tea and eating an assortment of cheeses. There should also be crackers.
I appreciate my life. I love my kids. I love my wife. I am thankful for my home, my job, my belongings. Things could be better for us, though. Things could be better for our spirits. But God knows what we need and I am a firm believer in the idea that wherever you are, that's where you are meant to be. And one day, if where we are meant to be is a ramshackle beach house, there we shall be, I with my dingy white t-shirts and saggy-bottom pants and a handful of paperbacks and my lovely wife. The kids will be in college or medical school or prison by then, so they aren't invited. They can build somewhere down the beach if they want.
Thank you,
Matt Beers
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