Que Sera Sara?

After much contemplation, I have arrived at five things my future life must hold:

I: Hills

Michigan is many things, but its central plain is ungodly flat. The hard dolomite under the area has made a basin impervious to even glacial sculpting it seems. While the rest of the state and region have rolling hills, cliffs and majestic mountains, the cupped palm of the Mitten State is mile after mile of flat.

I honestly never thought I could miss the Pentlands so much.

II: Water

I’ve always been part Selkie but having lived on an island where you are always less than a hundred miles from the sea, being landlocked was relatively hard to imagine (though the well-groomed Oxforshire countryside always did seem a tad stifling, perhaps this was the issue?).

But now, faced with the prospect of Wyoming or Oklahoma my heart literally skips a beat. It is unfathomable (and heartwrenching) to be more than an afternoon’s drive to my nearest tidal waters.

Positively Claustrophobic.

III: Green

In a similar vein, I thought I was adventurous and ready for a fresh start but I draw the line at arid.

The idea of living life anywhere hard, dry and brown seems like a drawn-out form of torture (even if it means blue skies every day of the year).

While I am sure there are desert people and mountain people and ice people in this world, I am 100% a person of verdure.

IV:  Wild(ish) Places

I cannot live and truly be alive without woods and glens and open places with no people and no traffic. I breathe my best thoughts in the peace of the forest.

I say -ish- as I am no Bear Grylls. I like my wild places with some pathways, and within walking distance of my teapot and duvet if at all possible.

While I can camp like nomadic shepherds without batting an eye (mostly), I need to know I can come home to a hot bath at the end of it.

V: Cultivated Places

On the flip side, there is something magnificent about nature bent to human will – a special kind of beauty in Olmsted’s vision and other architects of parks and gardens.

I could never replace my woods with just a city park, but likewise, a life with only the harshest of untamed wilderness would be exhausting. There is something soothing in lush, domesticated spaces which lets you relax and know you’re not going to be eaten.

Also: there is soft grass. One of life’s greatest small pleasures.

Five. Only five.

Surely that’s not too much to ask.