What I Want

First and foremost in Las Vegas, I want a home. I know I'll have it, but I'm still amazed that I can finally have it. I can settle into Las Vegas and know that I belong, know that the roads, the landscapes, the buildings will not shift into the forms found in another state. I can firmly plant myself and not move ever again, except for travel, which is always temporary movement anyway.

I want real bookshelves. I've used former moving boxes as bookshelves because it's what we had. Sure I could have bought some bookshelves for my smallish room, but it wouldn't have felt like home because it didn't feel like my room. It was just where I lived part of my day. I didn't feel close to it. Now that I know I'll be home, I can find bookshelves I know will be an important part of my life, and mean a great deal to me, not just for the books on it, but the bookshelves themselves because I'll have bought them in my home city.

I want a library card, and I know I'll have that, but I also want to find a library that I can go back to over and over because I love it, like I did the Pembroke Pines branch of the Broward County libraries, and also the Southwest Regional library of the same system, in the same city. I loved getting lost in those stacks, finding my way to books I didn't even know I wanted to read until I found them. I remember walking through the Boulder City library on our trip in May 2010 and it felt cozy. Everyone was welcome to seek the knowledge they wanted, and many books were old, but well-cared for. I want to find a library like that in Las Vegas and feel that it's mine.

I want to try to grow basil. I love the smell of it, a kind of saltiness. Windowsill basil. Basil that I can get right up to and examine the leaves. No small garden.

I've heard about disc golf, and want to try it. You throw a flying disc to a target. I don't think I'd ever strive to be professional at it. Just have fun. There's a few disc golf courses in Henderson. I'd like that.

Most of all, I want peace. I want to enjoy every day, knowing that I love where I am. I can't wait to have that again. I haven't had it since I was a little kid in Casselberry, Florida, in a house that had a tangerine tree on the right side of the house, a basketball hoop next to the driveway, and a huge tree in the front yard. There were space shuttle launches, with the space shuttle lifting off so close that you could see the American flag and "USA" on the wings, and glass-shaking sonic booms when it returned to the atmosphere. And there was Old Town in Kissimmee, Walt Disney World, of course, the Bubble Room restaurant, and Stirling Park Elementary, my elementary school in my neighborhood with the rotunda in the middle, and entrances to grade levels circling around, with tall bookshelves next to each entrance, serving as the library for the school, with the check-out desk on the circle in the middle after you walked down three carpeted steps that wrapped around that check-out desk.

That's all. I welcome anything else with the widest open arms, eager to take in everything, even the summer heat. I'll adjust, and remain just as happy as on any other days.