I was reading an article on “writing prompts”–things writers use to get them started when facing a blank page. One of the major themes of prompts is essentially ‘what is your fantasy?’
It made me think of a common “fantasy” I have with some of my married (with kids) friends.
A girlfriend of mine and I can go on and on about the deliciousness of a weekend spent this way:
All alone, in a great hotel with a beautiful lobby and a well-stocked cocktail lounge (with comfortable, deep chairs). Think the W Hotel. Three whole days without any demands, sleeping in as long as you like on 1,000 thread-count sheets. Lounging about all day in the hotel room, with the only thing looming ahead being the spa treatments you’ve got scheduled for the afternoon. You can read, sleep, or watch whatever T.V. programs you want, nobody is with you, so nobody cares. When you are hungry, you meander down to the outdoor Italian cafe that is (conveniently) a block down the street from your hotel, and order a glass of Sauvenigon Blanc or perhaps a Syrah. Your dinner of fresh pasta tossed with sweet tomatoes and garlic arrives just as the sun is starting it’s slow descent into the ocean that is (also quite conveniently) right in front of you.
Can you tell yet that I’m enjoying writing this? Here’s more:
The next morning, after sleeping in until 10:00 and taking a long, hot bath in the huge tub, you get in your rented little convertible for a trip to the charming downtown to do a spot of shopping. Of course, your body has become, overnight, long and lithe, so that everything you try on fits wonderfully…okay, now I’m entering the realm of unbelievablity.
But, the fantasy is fun. Try your own fantasy. What would you do with a weekend and a few thousand dollars?
mary june brown 
This was a beautifully descriptive post. You had me until the shopping part. I think in my version, I would stay in the whole time and read, or just think and maybe even get in some writing.
Heck, I wouldn’t even need a thousand dollars. Just give me the peace and quiet, a bed, and a relatively clean room and I would be ok.
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Struggling–yeah…a clean room with a peaceful bed would work for me, too. But come ON, don’t you want that pasta??? hee hee
-m
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Hmmmm…. I think the first weekend I get with a few thousand dollars, I’ll be patient and put it in some crazy but safe and very successful investment that triples my money in a short time so that I can go on lots of weekends away:)
First up, the coastline of Italy, to bask in the sun and eat good pasta and dip crusty bread in really good olive oil. The next weekend would be in Greece, where I’d hunt for one of those little white-washed houses on the coast where the water is so blue and beautiful, and I could set up a desk at a window overlooking it and write. The weekend after that I’d rent a helicopter to fly me over the Swiss Alps (have you ever flown over mountains? Amazing on a clear day). Then, I’d head over to Holland where I’d go running through the fields of tulips and windmills. The next weekend I’d go boating in Alaska looking for whales and oohing at the glaciers and iceburgs. Then, off to a sandy beach in the Carribean where I can kayak with my hubby and swim in the warm water.
I think I have a bunch of vacations planned out now. Just gotta find that crazy and successful investment first 🙂
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Oh my gosh, Kristina! You have so much energy! Your fantasy is like the opposite of mine, but that’s what’s so perfect about this exercise: everyone’s idea of bliss is different, which makes it interesting.
Good luck on that investment plan! hee!
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My wife and I were busy people even before children (well, child). But afterward is even more so, of course. For a long time she daydreamed about falling ill and being able to just lie in a hospital bed, doing nothing. Actually being sick would be awful, of course, and the same goes for hospitals. But that sort of enforced convelescence is attractive, somehow. Your way is better, but could you really see yourself not, for example, checking your email? I would have trouble with that, I think.
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It’s funny….why am I not surprised that a fantasy from someone who is a parent included sleeping in!
I have the same fantasy except it’s not involved a hotel, trips to a spa, Italian cafes, freshly tossed salad, or wine. Mine does, however, include sleeping in, of course.
Mine would include eating pizza, staying up late, drinking ice cold Coronas with lime slices, drinking lots of coffee, and daily activities like browsing in a massive bookstore or spending hours (like I used to) in libraries, looking stuff up on a whim…going from topic to topic….stopping by a coffee shop and getting a couple magazines about tech stuff, alternative music, and writing….I think attending a writers conference….
Oh, did I mention there’d be a lot of sleeping in!
-sj
p.s. Congrats on the article getting published!
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