Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Bucket list

The to do list creates slavery
I've been thinking about bucket lists -- wondering if I should have one, and considering the wavery line that exists between to do and bucket lists.  I met someone last spring who, when the topic came up, said, "Oh, I don't have a bucket list.  If I want to do something, I just do it."  I won't go into how annoying that was, because I'm trying to be positive.  Yes I am! [But really, who says that?  It's like saying, "Yeah, I never have problems -- when something arises, I just address it!"]

The taxonomy is obvious in some cases.  "Tidy the kitchen counter"  -- definitely to do list.  But what about, "clean out the freezer that has weird layer of frozen crumbs and goo of unknown origin that's been stuck there for a long time and I never want to clean it because it's so very very cold cold, not to mention out of sight?"   Should that be a bucket list item?  Because it's for sure way out of reach and may or may not happen in this lifetime.  But should the BL be fun?  The to do list makes us slaves, while the bucket list lets us dream?  Anyway, here goes.

1.  Spend a few months on an island in Greece eating olives and riding a one-speed bike to the market every day for seafood and retsina.  (The olives I'll just pick from a tree in the yard.)

The bucket list creates fantasy
2.  Press shin to occiput and hold.  (That was an actual instruction at a celebrity yoga class I took last week. And yes, that's a thing, celebrity yoga.) My tibia and occiput will never meet in the body that I wear around now, but maybe in some other lifetime.  (But I'm getting closer to being able to answer the phone that is my foot! Luckily my foot has no reason to call just yet, but one day, foot will call, and ear will be all, "Hello?  May I help you?")  But I put the S to O thing on this list to remember to imagine that things could be different, and there's not too much downside in trying.

3.  Finish writing my book, and try to make it good.  As Charles Frazier, who wrote Cold Mountain,  said, "even if it's just a book that sits in a drawer, I want it to be a good book in a drawer."  His, of course, turned out to be a smashing success, not a dust-gatherer in a drawer.  But still. I want a good book for my box in the basement.  If I had a basement.

4.  Learn to be a better communicator.  Not that my communication is particularly bad, but there are ways to listen and to speak, I believe, that bring out the best in everyone, and I'd like to get better at that.

 5.  Age gracefully. By that, I mean that when I become a little more crazy than I already am, it will be in a quiet, unobtrusive, victimless way, and I won't be mean-spirited or needy.

6.  Land on a comet.  Oh wait.  I don't want to climb in a tiny metal unit and go shooting out into space.  I like the earth, it is my home.  I have no interest in going anywhere at all.  Oh, except greece.  (That's on earth, no?)

7.  Write an entry for Atlas Obscura.  I don't do it, though, because I want to create a local entry, but what's to see?  Do I want to be responsible for encouraging disappinted tourists to drive through traffic to look at our big rock?  Does that really on my bucket list?

8.  Love and be loved.

9.  Heat my home with flower pots and rabbits.  (CHECK.)

10.  Create a little podcast where I interview interesting people.  And let's face it, we're all interesting.

11.  Work on a better bucket list.


20 comments:

  1. Hey, do you know Marshall Rosenberg's work (re: non-violent communication). I was lucky to be able to do a workshop with him a while back. Great stuff. He doesn't like to call it non-violent anymore, though. I forget what he does like - maybe "life-affirming".

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    1. Yes! My daughter is very involved in that, which makes me happy and proud. And makes me want to be a better communicater myself...

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  2. That flower pots and rabbits thing could be really, really big.

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    1. Right? Check this out. I built two so far. And by "build", I mean, well, you see what I mean.
      http://www.instructables.com/id/Flower-Pots-Tea-Lights-Heater/

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  3. Buckets lists should be only fun things and just a little out of reach. I definitely want to grow old and loud and crazy. I do not want to be the grandma they can put in the sunny window in corner. P.S. you cannot eat olives off a tree, they must be processed.

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    1. Shoot, I think I knew that once about the olives but it isn't part of my fantasy. I don't want to be THAT grandma either, but nor do I really want to be the pissy one...

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    2. Maybe it could be a persimmon tree?

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  4. I'm just trying to stay alive. Is that an okay thing for a bucket list?

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    1. Hmm, that might be more of a to do thing? Keep at it, though!
      xo

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  5. What I want to do before I leave this world, among other things, is read that book, even if it's in a box, in a drawer, in a basement that doesn't exist.

    Taliesin

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    1. That is such a manly name for a woman like you, Taliesin.

      What else is on your list?

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    2. This might change so that it doesn't become dogmatic but it's been pretty consistent for awhile now.

      1. Sail to Greece from Italy after I’ve visited Andalucia, the home of Federico Garcia Lorca.
      2. See, in person, the hovering temples of Greece built on sandstone pillars in Meteora.
      3. Learn to sail.
      4. Build my home.
      5. Pick a place and walk to it from 500 miles away.
      6, Be in a healthy, sacred, lover, relationship until the end of my life.

      Taliesia

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. My dear Talie, it's as simple as this: secrecy promotes suspicion. People who go to the trouble of creating encrypted identities usually have secrets!

      Saw the Stephen Hawking movie last night. I was pretty good, I thought.

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  6. I'm with Taliesin on reading that book.

    I'm also with Ms. Moon on my bucket list being just trying to stay alive.

    Sheesh. It seems I don't have an original thought in my head today.

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    1. Oh, it is the dark times in these northern parts, Jennio. More thoughts will arrive tomorrow.

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  7. Okay, now I have - if not an original thought - an original question, on the flower pot heaters. If you need to ventilate because it is a combustion heat source, how will the temperature ever have a chance to rise? I'm counting on you for the answer to this one, Bets, 'cause you have the science brain as well as the artist brain :)

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    1. Well, thanks for your faith in me. The thing about the flower pot heaters -- 1. They don't really work very well, but what little they off er is through heating the terra cotta pots, which give off a little tiny bit of heat in the closest few inches. If you lived in a shoebox, it might be a good heat source. 2. You don't need to ventilate any more than you do when having candles indoors (which is what this amounts to...)

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    2. Ohhh. Yes, yes it is. And I have never ventilated for those. Don't I feel rather stupid. I was thinking camp stove ventilation or BBQ ventilation, that sort of thing, the window open a good six inches, or even the door open. I'm really not very good at science. Or at logic, apparently. I did check out the website you gave, and it was intriguing, but I couldn't get past the need to ventilate.

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    3. No, it's a good thing to think about, ventilation. The humans need fresh air!

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