Writing 101, Day Two: Room with a View

As I sit in my bed, two soft pillows propped up behind my back, one of my family’s cats, an orange bengal, laying next to me, I begin typing on my laptop keyboard, trying to envision where I would go if I could teleport anywhere.

For nineteen years my family has been residing in a small house in a rural town that is best known for its quality tobacco leaves, which appear each summer in deep green hues among the fields that dot the landscape.

We live off the main road that crawls through Southwick, Massachusetts and leads either north, toward the college town of Westfield or south, across the Connecticut state line.

I would not need a road if I could disappear from my tiny bedroom on the second floor where I am now to any other location I can fathom up in my mind.

I could go to Columbia and learn how to make dark, aromatic brews from the coffee beans that the country is known around the world fo

Or, I could take a five minute walk over a hill and down to my favorite local eatery, known as Mrs. Murphy’s donuts, where a coffee and a donut requires no more than a couple dollars in cash.

Farther down the road even more goodies can be found where I had my first job, in a bakery that lies on the grounds of a farm, where I worked for six years and lived in the farmhouse for one. My black and white angel of a cat, Fatty, still lives there now, and I always love to see her gorgeous, furry face and loving yellow eyes.

But if I could go anywhere, why I could find myself up in the massive Himalayan Mountains, studying the arts of meditation and mindfulness at a Buddhist temple I can see so clearly in my mind, high enough to share the location with layers of misty white clouds, getting lost in myself and my soul.

If only I weren’t so warm and comfortable where I sit. An old, beat up copy of Phra the Phoenician laying on the small, square trunk that serves as my nightstand lying at my side, while my own, original pieces of artwork including ink, oil, paper, and graphite mediums adorning the walls.

Still, if I could go anywhere I wish? Even if I chose to float amidst the stars and the planets, see the Milky Way for myself, to watch the Sun rise over the Earth to begin a day anew, lighting up the beautiful marble that we call our home from far away?

Yet…Here I sit. In this room, my body firmly planted, while my mind conjures up images that seem so real I could really be out there, in Columbia, the Himalayas, or even outer space.

So if I could be anywhere right at this moment? I would choose here. Right here, writing these words, envisioning these thoughts. I am happy where I am, with a vivid imagination, words and pictures dancing in my head, and illuminating my mind.