I want…
- I want to feel as when I was eight, when my body was a transparent user interface, free from bugs and malware, running the latest OS.
- I want to hike across the ridges of alpine hills again, past bistros laying white tablecloths in the middle of the clouds.
- I want to swim in salt water, smell the freshness of that freshest possible air you breathe after being underwater in the ocean.
- I want leadership that is intelligent, compassionate, and effective.
- I want my eight-year-old son to move away from the screen time that makes him belligerent (well, for him), withdrawn, and antisocial. This is a struggle every day, multiplied exponentially by quarantine.
- I want to finish writing a novel.
- I want the planet to emerge from the pandemic more committed than ever to humane ideals: cooperation, care, moderation, justice, equality, transparence, love.
- I want a haircut. Okay, maybe a trim. Actually, what I really want is to lean back into one of those notched sinks as Haruyo really gets her fingertips into my scalp for a thorough head massage and hair wash. I miss Haruyo. She cuts the hair of everyone in our family here in Florence, from the Aveda Salon on Via dei Neri, closed since early March by national decree. I hope she is ok, wherever she is. I am sending love out to the gentle Haruyo.
- I want to take my readers on a caper with me to a different time imagined in detail, drawing characters they will come to love as I do.
- I want every person who survives the pandemic to be changed permanently and for the better after it subsides. I want these lessons taken to 7+ billion hearts. I want synapses rearranged in a massive infinite exercise in neural plasticity. I want everyone to understand that it can and will happen again and, like a dystopic piece of fiction, everyone who remembers their lessons will be more likely to survive next time. I am rooting for survival!
