One of the few things in life that are perfect, are dreams.  Another thing that is so, are fantasies, but these things are truly perfect and exciting only because they have a seedy temptation to them.  So, being pure of mind, body, and spirit, I turned to thinking about the perfection of dreams.  I found only one commonality to each and all, and that is that no answer can be made to the question of a dream.  They are perfect and the only answer is, “yes.”

Often, the best dreams don’t even need to come true to be valued and honored, and cherished for life.  They exist in a constant state of excitement, never becoming sullied, or soiled, or destroyed, or replaced (unless to great reason).  They will often also morph with time, keeping pace with our growing age.  I have often labelled my dreams, calling them code words or names, like love, honey, home, friend, trust, fun, and remember.  I know what I mean, and if I am speaking with someone, perhaps a friend, and I talk about these, the greatest things in my life, I will very willingly, describe to great detail what it is all about.

So, today, a day like most other days in my life, I had time to be inside of a coffee shop, with all the bustling business and the coming and going of clientel.  I had time to myself and started to make notes about a discussion that had gone on earlier in the week.  We were trying to create  something of perfection inside the home, specifically the living room.  And, the key word that came up was dream.  All things led to this central word: “home, perfection, marriage, love, longevity, money, children, history, war and peace, and care.”  Why this list of ten words?  It was the most inclusive way to explain how each and every single person can look at their living room, in their home, and understand, just by the central code word, “dream.”

A place to live in, a place to sleep in, a place to fall in love in, a place to have fun in.  These are easily the things that happen in this hallowed room of ages and ages.  People take care of their living rooms, knowing that strangers and lovers and everyone else in between show up here, to meet, to greet, to discuss, and to arrange and to make deals.  Everything from life to death is discussed here, and if someone were to try to destroy or sully the sanctity of this room, with, say, a mention of the cost of money, then may they be banished, permanently, from this hallowed place.

Children are easily welcomed here, on condition that they behave.  If someone under the age of eighteen wants to lounge on the furniture, or jump on it, say, then, these children will have to either choose the family room of the basement, where the rec room is.  It is from these strange and foreign rules that the first idea of the dream of the living room is born.  “What is it that happens in such a forbidden place?”

Sometimes, the living room is almost like a “hallowed” place.  There sometimes are strict unspoken rules about entering and using it.  All a mother has to say is, “Don’t go in,” and any son and any daughter will not venture in, until, say, they have proof that they are smart enough to enter.  A graduation of some sort, or the purchase of that first real coffee table book of some real, serious, substance, even though it is a coffee table book.  Sometimes, turning eighteen is all a son or daughter needs to enter the barred place.  They move out and when they come to visit, they will walk into the living room, to peer at the glass cabinet, the “corner filler” of the three panel screen filled with family photos, or plunk a few keys on the upright piano.  They become automatically allowed to walk in and sit on the furniture, until mom invites them to eat something and drink something for afternoon snack and tea.  And, in this way, the sanctity, the dream, is not demolished.

The living room is misnamed by most people.  “Sitting room, the guest room, the front room.”  In the past, it had the best fireplace that could warm the room quickly and keep it at a comfortable temperature.  It held things of importance and value.  It was the right size, the best size, to be of the most comfort.  The rest of the house was not built with these specifications, where the need for room and space for use were the only determinants of size and comfort.  Even in this day, often the “living room,” is just one of those less used rooms.  Perhaps for the location of the room.  Perhaps it is just that one additional room that no one really has a use for.  Perhaps it is because mother has put so much China and figurines and silver plated finery into the room that it is dangerous to even turn around.  Even the basement has more use.  Although it is cold, even freezing, for most of the year, the size of the basement makes it a fun, dark, and imaginative place.  If anything could get broken down there, it wouldn’t matter.

Now, I remember shopping for the first house I could own.  We attended all the new house developments first, which allowed us to see new designs in the reality of walking into model homes.  The houses were gorgeous.  Often, the architects moved the rooms around, into different places, sometimes in a very imaginative way.  I felt like I was walking into a life-size dollhouse.  Sometimes, I was able to be appreciative of these innovative changes, but most times, I felt like I was inside those games where blocks are moved randomly around until a picture emerges.

We ended up buying a sixty-year-old house that we renovated, updating the wiring, the plumbing, and removing some of the walls.  It was expensive, but it was worth the cost and the incredible  way it was comfortable.  Even though it was built more than half-a-century before, the time-tested, the first, the intuitive way, seemed much more likeable than the fancy sizes and innovative placement of any of the new living rooms we saw.

The next change is coming.  And, like a busy ant or busy bee, I am already thinking ten to twenty years ahead.  We will have to down-size.  My criteria?  That the apartment have a living room.  I dream about this perfect apartment, as I am excited by change and look forward to being in the next place.  I actually have very few of the details understood, but I am finding that I am attracted by the idea of retirement.  I feel that being in a bright, roomy, place with complete access to all areas of home is how I imagine retirement.  Perhaps this home will be one large, enormous, living room.  Now, that would be quite the golden gem, quite the perfect dream, to own!