One of my favorite books of all time is Candide by Voltaire - in my opinion, a perfect reflection of the nature of humans and evidence that humanity doesn’t evolve and history repeats itself (I’m a cynic at times). One of my favorite lines comes at the end when Candide says, “We must cultivate our garden.” A marking of the end of their misery, the characters that withstood are able to embrace happiness in hard, simple labor.

I think in my utopian dream world, I’d be self-sustaining. I’ll start by growing my own herbs for cooking: I spent my snowed-in Sunday afternoon watering and fluffing 72 peat moss pods and filling them up with Thyme, Rosemary & Lavender seeds. It was refreshing. I can’t wait to smell them.