In the wee small hours of the morning

. . . the mind can drift to an alternative reality where we can somehow leave behind the obligations, congestions, and frustrations. Leave behind the noise, institutions, and technologies.

We have enough savings between us to outright buy a unit in a neighborhood at the Ithaca ecovillage.

Nestled among the Finger Lakes, Ithaca is not near a major city. The air is clear. There’s little traffic. The property taxes are negligible. The ecovillage has a car-sharing program, so we wouldn’t need a car.

We would just have tasks each day to maintain the household, nurture the neighborhood, sustain the village, regenerate the habitat. Co-create some culture. Mindfully, simply, slowly.

It wouldn’t even require an awful lot of talking. Minimize the chatter. Listen a lot . . . as we “restore a life that can hear what the natural world is telling us, what we once knew long ago and have forgotten as the urban labyrinth grew up around us and enclosed us.”

Would you come with me? (at least, in a dream)