Sundays on the Porch
Daydreaming.
There’s a picture of my future that has been taking shape in my mind recently. Not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in that quiet, steady way certain truths eventually reveal themselves. A life that’s slower, softer, and rooted in a way I’ve never fully allowed myself to believe in.
It’s strange, considering where I come from. The idea of settling anywhere long-term makes something old and protective flare up in me. Like permanence is a risk I’m not sure I’m allowed to take.
But when I think about the life I actually want, all that noise falls away.
I picture slow mornings. The kind where time doesn’t startle you awake. I brew coffee for two in a warm kitchen. I lean into a little yoga to shake off the night as early morning sunlight moves across the walls. It feels like the house itself is in conversation with the day. My garden needs tending in all the predictable, grounding ways gardens do. My dog is waiting at the door, impatiently, for our first walk.
The life is simple, but it doesn’t feel small. It feels deliberate.
Future me still works. Of course he does. I’ve never seen a version of myself without projects, active ideas, or some thread pulling me toward the next creative leap. But the work takes a different shape now. My neighbors know me as the guy who owns the general store on Main Street. It’s just a little shop full of “alternative provisions,” cool gear and everyday goods with intention behind them. The kind of place people stop into just to feel connected to something.
The agency still exists, too. It’s a creative and strategic practice that pulls me into global conversations and worlds bigger than the one I live in. And then there’s the philanthropic fund, the quiet backbone of it all. I founded it the very first time I felt like was severely overpaid. My work feels like giving back to the people who dare to try.
The house is modest, it’s just off Main Street, and the floors creak to prove its maturity. There’s three bedrooms, a perfect-sized kitchen, and a long wooden table in the dining room. Because dinners always end up with more guests than expected.
There’s a garden that produces too many tomatoes, herbs, and whatever else I’ve convinced myself I can grow. Some weeks I show up at the farmer’s market with baskets of vegetables; other weeks it goes to community dinners at the shop just because food has a way of gathering people.
There’s still travel, but it’s no longer the center of my life. It’s seasoning, not substance. There’s a beach house or a cabin at a lake, somewhere. Whichever balances the main home. There’s a cottage in Ireland and a flat in Italy (probably Verona); places we return to with less urgency now.
This version of my life is full, but not frantic. Busy, but not overloaded. Wide, but still anchored in something real and warm and repeating. And every time I sit with it, it feels less like a fantasy and more like a truth I’m slowly growing toward; a life that finally feels like mine, like home in the way I never had it but always wanted.