Midcoast resident Heather D. Martin wants to know what’s on your mind; email her at heather@heatherdmartin.com.

Here we are in mid-December. Everyone doing OK? I hope all of you are getting an ample supply of cookies, eggnog and merriment.

I have decided to give myself the gift of using this space to sketch out my ideal community. Right here, in black and white, the way I wish life would be.

Now, if you have a suggestion, an addition, a question or a way you think it might work better, come on in. I want to hear what you are thinking.

But if you just want to tell me it is stupid, or lay out all the reasons why it won’t work … keep on walkin’. No one is forcing you to live in this imaginary town, so no need to kick in the walls. Don’t yuck my yum.

In this place there is no homelessness. Not because we move people along or set out spiked park benches (the ultimate societal insult), but because everyone there gets a home. Everyone.

Same with health care. No insurance middle-step, just quality health care for everyone. Pets get included in all this, too.

Oh, and education. I don’t mean just through high school. No. I am talking forever. Lifelong learning. Allowing people who are unhappy at their job to train for and move into a career they find fulfilling benefits everyone. So does inviting people to go and study something just because they think it is interesting. Education should be about curiosity, not fiscal risk assessment.

This will not come cheap. Though, it is way cheaper than the health care, judicial and societal costs to homelessness.

Still, to fund it, taxes will be high. Which no one loves, but the taxes will also fund a life that is kinder, gentler, more enjoyable for everyone. So there’s that. Plus, a portion of those taxes may be paid by pitching in. Tending the communal gardens perhaps, or volunteering at the library.

What’s more, folks who do a job deemed essential for the well-being of the community – doctors, firefighters and teachers, for example – get special reductions in their tax rate to keep them living in the community they serve.

The houses come in a mix. At first I thought it would be cool to have the entire community contained in one single giant high rise – like Whittier, Alaska – but then I realized that that might be the starting plot of a massive murder mystery. Instead, everyone gets a space that suits them.

There will be single homes, apartment complexes, duplexes, row houses, houseboats, tree houses, cave dwellings. The special twist is that every structure will be designed by architecture students, competing for points awarded for energy efficiency, clever use of space, and aesthetic appeal.

Residents may purchase or rent their home, but not the land it sits on. The houseboat folks already understand this idea.

The earth and the trees and the mountains and the air – these things belong to all of us. They are all of our responsibility to care for. It is crazy that humans think it is possible to “own” a piece of the planet which predates us by about 4.5 billion years and will, with any luck, be here long after we are gone.

I have more details on this. I have thoughts about voting and inclusion and so much more, but I fear we are out of time. And, of course, I realize a grown person drafting out a utopia vision is a tad simplistic.

So, for now, I will take this little, albeit selfish, gift I gave myself and ask how I might use the actual tools at my disposal – my time, my donatable funds – to work toward creating this in our shared here and now.