Someday...

One of my co-workers was in Costa Rica last week. When she got back she gave us all coffee samples made from shade-grown, organic beans from a small farm (I would call it a "plantation" because that just sounds better for coffee, but since their website says "farm" I'll go with that) called Cafe Cristina. The beans are grown on about 60 acres by a family that brags that their methods are the model of sustainability. Becca, my co-worker, tells me that the owners are American engineers who worked on the Panama Canal then moved to Costa Rica after buying a small farm in that beautiful country.

God, isn't that the ultimate dream? Okay, I know it's not for everyone, but to find a wild, beautiful corner of the world and turn it into your own working, living thing of beauty, to live by the seasons, to work out doors, to be a part of the world that surrounds and sustains us instead of being walled off from it in climate controlled, flourescent-lit holding pens, to build something meaningful, maybe even trans-generational--that's my idea of heaven.

Ever the practical one who keeps my feet on the ground when somebody needs to, Melissa has a very short answer when I tell her about how much I'd like to have a place like that someday. She looks at me with undying patience and says "Neither one of us drinks coffee."

Okay, she has a point there. And of course, it will be years before we could ever afford anything like this anyway. But in the end it's not the coffee beans, or the grapes or the bison or any of the niche products I'm always pratling on about producing someday. I'm not looking for another job; as jobs go I've already got a pretty good one. What I'm looking for is a life.

I'm partial to staying here in Northern Nevada, but it's not a requirement. Maybe it will be some open acerage in some obscure mountain valley where I can raise bison or some other alternative livestock (but not llamas--yech, too yuppie). Maybe it will be an orchard in my old stomping ground in the Pacific Northwest. Melissa, who loves wine as much as I do, likes the idea of a small vineyard somewhere near her hometown of St. Louis, in Missouri's little-known but ancient (by American standards) wine country. Or perhaps better opportunities lie to the south, outside the borders of this country. In the end, the product is essentially just a detail. It's the life that matters.

When I hear about Cafe Cristina, the world seems a little brighter. A little voice inside my head whispers "See? It isn't just a hopeless daydream! It's possible. It's possible, damn it! Maybe someday I'll find a way."