Wishful Thinking

I admire people who see themselves exactly as they are. Maybe you are one of them? 

This is the beautiful heath near where my sister lives ~ with the heather in full bloom!

Me? I know who I am and at the same time I have these vision of how I'd like to be. They are never quite realistic as they are in total conflict with who I really am. Let me give you some examples.

I have this image of myself as a June Cleaver type woman, the perfect housewife from Leave it to Beaver. I see myself dressed perfectly with not a hair out of place, my face always flawless (not possibly a pimple on my nose like I have right now), keeping a spotless house, always having delicious meals on the table, never forgetting a birthday of anyone I've ever known, taking care of those in need, and greeting every challenge with an amazing sense of humor. You get the picture...

Now, I know that this is not me and will never be, but still there's that slight hope that maybe I have a little bit of that in me. I do love the cooking and the baking part ... and I do love to wear a pretty apron, but cleaning the kitchen is NOT my favorite past time. I'd rather wear the apron while eating a piece of cake and reading a good mystery.

Bee hives for some delicious heather honey.

Ok, here's another image I have of myself - that of reading great literature all the time. Daniel reads a lot of great literature. I do on rare occasions when I hear it is really, really good! I will not read a book that makes me sad, even if it is the most amazing book ever written.

But I do love a good mystery. Even though they deal with murder, I find them strangely soothing. Not psychological thrillers (I can't read those - they make me anxious), but straight forward murder mysteries. There's an order to them and I need order for my overactive mind. Usually, there's a murder, then all the false leads and then at the end (in the books I like), there is the solution. And if the book is really good, there are interesting characters and unusual settings to boot!

My dad and I ~ we were there early in the morning.

Now, I have read lots of great literature in school and later on, and I still do when I know it will enrich my life, but not simply because I should. Although in my vision, I often sit on our chaise lounge (when Winslow isn't having a snooze on it), sipping tea and finishing the collected works of Shakespeare. Maybe some day. Or maybe not.

And then there are visions I have of myself that I know could be true and they scare me.

Schloss Raesfeld - a water castle in the area.

I can feel it in me that I could be a great artist - not by any outside standards as I have no idea what makes great art. I just feel it in me that there is much amazing art yet to be created.

And somehow that makes me hold back. Like right now, I have these images in my head of the next pieces I want to paint ~ and so I do other things instead. That's a part of me I don't quite understand and that aggravates me.

I observed my dad while I was in Germany and he is a doer. He gets something in his head and he makes a decision and then does it. It's his personality - he makes things happen.

His motto seems to be: "Let's do it now and then it's done." My motto seems to be: "That sounds like an interesting idea. Let's think about it for a while longer." There is value in both approaches, even in the waiting. Sometimes solutions will pop up that needed that space of "doing nothing."

The colors and patterns are very typical for the area.

However, in my vision of myself, I get things done! In my vision, that pile of papers on the kitchen counter that I need to go through, is already taken care of and filed. In reality that hasn't happened yet.

In my vision, I am the example of efficiency. By seven in the morning, I would have already cleaned the house, baked bread, done five loads of laundry, ironed all the clothes, and written several letters.

Ah letters! Here we come to another bit of wishful thinking. Before e-mail and the internet, I was a letter writer. Not a great one, but a fairly regular one. And I still see me reviving that lost art again.

And, of course, there was food. Excellent German food!
I ate all that was on this plate!! All of it!

I've tried. I even have a beautiful box with all my letter writing gear together, but it's not happening. It does for little bits of time, but it doesn't last. E-mail is so much less time consuming and so much quicker.  It's not as pretty or as lasting, but so much more immediate. Still, that wish persists and I haven't taken the letter writing box apart. Maybe some day...

This little duck was VERY hungry...

Still, with all that wishful thinking of the kind of woman I would like to be, I do ~ for the most part ~ like the kind of woman I have become and am still becoming. However, every time I am away from home for some time, I think that maybe NOW, when I get back, I'll be a little more like June Cleaver.

Siesta time! 

On this last visit to Germany my aunt even gave me a beautiful apron. I love to wear it and pretend to be that perfect housewife, but I still love cooking more than doing the dishes, and baking way more than mopping the floors, and eating more than just about anything else...

❧ Silke