Place

Do you ever wish that you could live ten lives, all in different places? I'm not up for moving every year (even though that's been the case the last couple of years) but if I had unlimited time and circumstances, there are a few places that I wouldn't mind trying out.

In one life I would be a local shopkeeper in some ancient European town. It would be a family business that I inherited from my family and one that I would pass on to my children when I died. Business would never be great. I wouldn't even think about franchising. But it would be enough to get by on. It would be a town near the sea where I would meet my friends every morning at some little known restaurant. We'd sit on barstools and talk about the comercialization of the fishing industry over bitter coffee and toast. I would take walks with my family out to the country. The hills would glisten and greet us in the late afternoon as our kids would run on ahead and their rolling shadows would whisper goodnight on the way home. Our lives would be simple. There would be less plastic and more stone and cherry wood, more earth and less electricity. We would have a garden that we would eat from. We'd have warm bread and beef stew often, and trips to the candy store would be less common and more special. We wouldn't travel much, just content to find all there is to know about our immediate surroundings.