A big piece of paper

I read this fabulous magazine in Western Australia.
It was a yoga / health / knit your own tampons / get spiritual magazine.

I was en route to swimming with dolphins.
I was lonely. I was looking for answers.
It said to get a big piece of paper.
To divide the page into sections, your life in a pie chart.
Love / work / Health etc
And list all the things that you want in your life.
I kept the piece of paper, it's in storage in my sister's attic.
From memory, here's some of the stuff that was on it, and some more I'm adding now.

I want a big house in the country, with loads of kids, a home for kids from childrens home to holiday in, a place that kids can adventure in, with a big kitchen, that I cook in a lot.
I want to foster children.
I want to write.
I want to do treasure hunts in the grounds (an idea inspired by my mother).
I want a big dressing up chest.
For the kids. And me.
I want a horse.
(This is not new. I wished for one on every wishbone from the age of five to, well, 33.)

I want kites, flown on cliffs and in fields.
I want to grow my own vegtables. And herbs. And roses. And jasmine.
I want to scatter the jasmine through my house so it smells scintilating when the flower's in season.
I want to tell stories round an open fire, have singing round a bonfire.
I want to fill my space with creative people and throw fabulous dinner parties with inspiring guests. A mixture of my friends, family and a plethora of arty folk and political folk who bounce ideas of each other, get a tad squiffy and hatch joint projects. That they follow through.
Then say in later years, 'well, i was in this big country house, and me and x were just chatting.... and the idea was born'.
I want to walk by the ocean on a regular basis.
See bluebell carpeted woods each spring.

I want my kids to be more aware than me. I want them to know, next time there's a charismatic leader, even if they admire what he has done to a political party they have always supported, that some wars should never be started.
I want the East End of London to feel comfortable again, not to seethe with tension and hostility. I want my country to stop repeating it's own tragic history. The history of a bullying nation.

I want the world to see that the way to fight evil is with kindness, and nurturing. I want people to remember the story of the man riding through the woods in a cloak, and the wind and the sun competing to get his cloak off. I want my kids to recall that it was the warmth of the sun, not the battling of the wind, that got the man to remove that jacket. And to learn from that story. Not just at school, for a moment, but for life.
I want them to remember the story of the Good Samaritian. I want to always remember it myself. Not to think sometimes ' well, if I cross the road, I'll avoid that trouble'.

I want everyone in the world to read the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, preferably at the same time, on a world holiday say. Because it tells those stories in a new way. Because it teaches empathy and reminds me what friendship and courage and kindness are, and why they are the way to go.

I want the wait for the next Harry Potter to be over now.
And also not to be.
Because if it was over I wouldn't get to spend the next two days comparing notes with my nephew about who's going to get it first / read it first / who's the most excited / whether Ron and Hermoine will kiss. The anticpation would be prematurely ended.
But I'd have the book.
So I'll park that under 'not sure what I want there'.