Aldo Nova was right: Life is just a fantasy...

It was great to have the opportunity to speak with Paige Marley from WRDE about all the events we have happening for National Poetry Month.

Working with the directors & coordinators at Freeman has been a truly uplifting experience. I know it's cliché to say, but it really is like a dream come true. I've been wanting to do something locally in my community for so long - since 2007 to be exact. Every day on my way home from work (at the radio station on 49th St, in Ocean City), I'd drive west on Route 54 and see to work being done on a new building by Fenwick Shoals. As the skeletal frame took shape and grew, so did my creative fantasy about what I wanted to do there.

Of course, I had no idea there were already a number of businesses slated to open in that location. If you clicked the Fenwick Shoals link and saw the map, you can see the roof of the building to which I'm referring - next to a utensil icon. It's where Mio Fratello restaurant is now.

The building's huge, right? Man-o-man, the dreams I had for that place.

I envisioned a used book store / gift shop / cafe counter / reading lounge... with side rooms for performances, and workshops, and after-school art-space hangout for kids, and events. I thought it might be cool to offer a room for free to local artists, creators, crafters, musicians, non-profits, youth groups, writing groups, and even fitness instructors, so they could hold classes & workshops and make a little money. I wanted to have a home location for open mics, and spoken words events, book & CD releases, and fundraisers. It would be a throwback to the grunge coffeehouse bookstores I knew in California in the 90's. Dark walls, slouchy sofas, eclectic jazz playing in the background. TOTALLY out of place here in the bright, pastel Earth-tones of west-West Fenwick Island. (Hmm, metaphor much?)

The ideas have gotten even bigger in the last few years. I now imagine (somewhere wooded instead) a walking trail through the woods, with places to sit & write, think, & meditate, as well as climb & jump, and see displays of poetry. I'm going to create it using repurposed tires, and it will be adorned with haiku rocks, book bricks, poetry boxes, natural (Earth-friendly) poetry-art, flower gardens, and (faux) wishing wells. I'd build a pyramid made of tires in an alcove off the path. There's be tire swings, and tire planters, and tire playground items peppered throughout the woods.

In my mind, it's the most amazing place ever. And the best part is that it can involve the local artists and members of the community in painting tires, and building any number of features.

I mean, if you're gonna dream, ya might as well dream big, right? Well, that's probably what I would do if I won the lottery - make that place a real place. It would be nice to leave a legacy like that. I don't have kids, and I really don't have family... so a book store/creative space with a poetry forest would kind of be the ultimate dream come true.

Although I also fantasize about winning the lottery and buying some famous person's huge old mansion on a lot of land, and turning it into a homeless shelter/animal rescue, where we could pay the homeless people who stay there to help out at the shelter. There'd be a full time vet staff, and of course a feral cat sanctuary.

So, obviously... I guess I need to win the Powerball.

Of course, I don't play the lottery... so winning the Powerball might take quite a while...

Until then, a Haiku Garden right in my own neighborhood is the next best thing. I'm so stoked about this.