Cases of Marshmallows

I think we all wonder what we could have done differently, at least once in a while.
Well, I did some intense wondering the other day.
If I had it to do over again, I would pack up my three babies and a trailer full of supplies and I would drive up into the mountains.
I would build us a home in the woods, a big log cabin.
I would add a huge screen room for us to play in when the weather was rainy or snowy.
When the weather was good, we would tramp through the woods and learn about plants and flowers and butterflies and birds.
I would teach my kids to respect nature.
We would grow our own vegetables and then we would can and preserve them.
We would make jellies and jams from the berries that grew wild and apple pies from the apples growing on our own trees.
I would be their teacher, not the radio or the television, not the gang on the corner. I would teach them about music and we would play vinyl records on our record player, which would be powered by our solar generator. No Satanic music in their ears, no lyrics demanding that they “kill the effing pigs” or screaming “I want your sex.”
I would teach them how to read and how to write.
I would teach them everything they needed to know to go out into the world, but the world would not have polluted them.
They would not have watched me fight to hold on to myself. There would not have been angry, controlling, critical men in our lives.
They would have never seen commercials that used sex to sell everything from shampoo to cars.
They would never have eaten at McDonald’s, getting hooked on disgusting hamburgers made with pink slime. They would have home-baked bread that they helped me cook and they would learn to cook and bake.
They would have squirrels, butterflies, rabbits and the birds in the trees as pets.
Our little home would be surrounded by trees, grass, flowers and vegetables.
My supplies would include books for all ages, finger paints and crayons, scissors and tape and glue, glitter and paper. I would encourage their artistic spirit because we are all born with a creative spirit but it is fragile and so many things can crush it. They would be encouraged, not held down by a limited, biased school agenda.
In the fall, we would twist branches into wreaths and decorate them with pine cones.
We would decorate our Christmas tree with homemade sugar cookies, popcorn and nuts and the flowers we dried in the summer.
We would sit under the stars and roast marshmallows. Oh yes, I would bring cases of marshmallows.
They would have a chance to grow up without negative influences and they would not spend hours watching other people live on the television set.
Angels would surround us as I tucked them into bed each night.
I think we all wonder what we could have done differently, at least once in a while.