One liberating thing about getting back to nature is the space you get when you don’t have the normal fences of life hemming you all around.
I love to ride my bike up steep hills. One of my favorite steep hills is the one that leads to the jaw dropping Maroon Bells in Aspen. Riding up that hill, the conflicts of my life become as clear as the Colorado sky, and it’s that most precious of times when it’s just between me and me.
I’ve been reading a book called “One Year to Live”. It’s about living your life for one year as if it was really your last year of life. How would you spend it? How would you change your priorities?
I didn’t want to read the book. I have a lot of fear about death. Yes, I know, who doesn’t, but I have a low glass ceiling when it comes to family history. I never knew any of my grandparents—they were dead before I was born. My father died of a brain tumor at 65 and my mother died of Alzheimer’s, which she developed in her early ‘60’s. This kind of family history sucks and it becomes a mind game.
One thing I didn’t tell Joan Walsh when I was giving her my turning 50’s birthday advice is that because of this family history (and I know her mother died at 45), turning 50 set me into an unanticipated terror frenzy…knowing that I was entering a decade that turned out to be my parent’s last full decade of their lives.
Unexpectedly, reading the book and its focus on LIFE has been liberating. Normally when I’m riding my bike and sharing the road with blurring tons of metal, I worry about being hit. I’ve gone so far as to imagine my death, and then the ego kicks in furiously with a grand scenario of my memorial service, where of course people are coming in droves, weeping and gnashing their teeth, devastated and wondering how they will ever manage without me.
Silly me!
I make myself laugh out loud on that bike when I go down this Sarah Bernhardt road. I know too well that nature abhors a vacuum, and we can be well loved and missed…and life goes on.
So, how would I spend the last year of my life? For me, that’s an easy one. I’d cash out my stock portfolio (what’s left of it) and spend the year taking my family on the trip of our lifetimes. We would spend time going to places exotic and strange and places where we could be of some help—Habitat for Humanity or Global Volunteers. I would spend a lot of time doing the creepy mom stare.
You can’t get a better education than you get from traveling. My son, the one that ditched me by that houseboat in Lake Powell, traveled for 5 months by himself last year. When he returned, he wisely said:
“Patterns and problems don't change with geography, but the perspective you gain while traveling does.”
In this week of fear and panic, where is your focus?
I’ve loved the ongoing “photos for Susan”. The bold colorful flowers are the ones that settle me down. Take me out of my fear and myself. Being mindful of my breath…that one constant, the miraculous workings of the human body. Life is all around us.
WHAT’S ON YOUR BUCKET LIST? I’m always looking for more ideas….
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Comments
Everyone should get busy living though.
(rated)
While I am more recession proof than most, it pains me to watch my parents and clients worry.
BBE: Your answer is the honest answer of most men.
Buckeyedoc: I went ziplining in Costa Rica in April. It was fantastic, once I got past the crazy shaking legs. I got stuck, plain ole stopped in the middle of the highest most exposed 1/2 mile ride. Deep breathing and a good guide got me through it.
I lost my fear of death when my lover went into a coma into my arms and never again woke up. It was the most spiritually significant moment of my life, and the fear of death was lifted from me in that moment. It's a bromide, but damn, it's true. I just live each day as if it was my last, and I NEVER forget to tell the people I love that I love them when we're parting.
BBE: Of course you would! Not sure how easy that would be in Thailand.
Odetteroulette: Spending time with the children...gotta to be a favorite for most.
Magpie May: Yeah, it's hard to not freak them out, but they can deal with it. Or at least that's what I tell mine!
#2 -- not letting unique opportunities pass me by. I loved Mary's story about "stalking" Pat Conroy. It was an inspiration to grab life by the horns and/or nuts, whichever.
#3 -- let go of things that add stress to my life, whether it's people or activities.
And each day I try to live with grace and love. Let the people I love know it. Keep a smile on my face as much as possible. Try to keep an open mind.
J.
I have a list, at the top of which is a week camping in the Desolation
Wilderness with my son. I hope I can hang on for another four years or so, because I think he'll need about that long to grow old and strong enough to make that journey. I'd also like to get back to the Grand Canyon; that was an awesome trip.
The Bucket List is supposed to be comprised of things you haven't done, right? Or maybe haven't done right. I'm fortunate in having already been able to do so many of the things I always wanted to do.
On the travel front, Africa and Machu Pichu remain destinations I'd love to make it to, though my funding ain't formidable enough to make one, let alone both of those.
I've sky-dived, I've scuba-dived, I've been close enough to touch a whale in the open ocean; I've been all over Europe and much of Asia, and I've meditated in temples sacred and mundane in Burma, Thailand, Nepal and Tibet. I've crossed a mountain pass in the Himalaya near 20,000 ft and I have drunk man-sized goblets of beer at the Oktoberfest in Munich. I enjoyed a tropical island romance with a 19 year-old Swedish angel in my 20s and have known the love of one woman for 20 years. I have sung music on stage with one of the iconic bands of my youth, recorded a full-length album of my own compositions with pros in Nashville, and saw Brett Favre play football at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
There are a million things I haven't done right, on the other hand, and if I were truly given just one year to live, I think I would dedicate it to concentrating on my breath, to breathing in all the pain and sadness and evil and wrongness in the world, and breathing out joy and beauty and light.
That's something I could afford, and something I could do at home, in the company of people who love me.
Lonnie, your comment made me cry. I do that a lot lately.
I want to spend more time with my daughter, I know that much, and am thrilled to know we'll be together with my mother for the holidays. It's the "little" times that matter the most to me. It also occurs to me in the moment I want to visit China--but old China--the new one lacks imagination.
Kelly: I love your idea of reconnecting to ancestral times. And Ireland..beautiful country...I've been there twice. The people are so wonderful.
artsfish: Yes, letting go of the stress. Something I need to remind myself of daily.
LONNIE: You hit the nail on the head. And something I finished my post with...the act of the breath...the act of breathing...the breathing in and out...it helps and it helps appreciate life a lot. Your comment was a post in and of itself...
Lauren...yes come live here when you can. You know it is a magical place.
Ben: I need to take the break from "reality"...I often tell myself if I never watched the news or TV, I'd be quite content. And you're right...it's the little things. The last year of my father's life, and he knew I believe he wasn't going to live for life because of an inoperable malignant brain tumor, he so appreciated every little detail...the spectacular view driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, the taste of a good meal, the sight of his wife and children. He was a good teacher. He would tell me he wanted to live longer, but that he wasn't greedy. He had such an appreciation of his full and rich life.
Buckeye: You remind me. I want to take the time next year to WEED my garden. Let's just say, it's beautiful right now and rustic. And there's a pumpkin patch growing. I love pumpkins.
Yes, quit my job, duh! Husband to quit his too! We need time to get reaquainted with one another after all these years of raising kids, working far too many hours, living separate lives too much of the time and multi-tasking from dawn to collapsing!
So no more muti-tasking. Learning to do the big and little things methodically and with purpose, noticing every nuance along the way.
Travel only within the US and re-learn this rich, multi-cultural, dramatically gorgeous landscape that is our country. Talk to everyone, old and young, rich and poor, happy and sad and learn the wisdom of others.
Spend as much time with each daughter and spouse, significant other, their pets and cook for them often. Gather in each domicile around a table and study their faces, their eyes, their smiles and rejoice in the spitit of family.
Play with my grandson and future grandbaby, read to them, sing to them, bathe them with lots of bubbles, get dirty in the yard with them, plant flowers with them. Let them know who their gramma is and how special they are to me.
Plant a vegetable/herb garden and make a meal from the fruits of my own labor.
Walk, walk, walk. See, smell, taste, enjoy my surroundings wherever I am. Smile a lot, laugh a ton, even if it creeps some people out!
Spend more time at home, less running around.
Pray for peace and for the happiness, health and safety of all my loved ones, family and friends, neighbors and merchants.
Pray for my enemies, that they will one day come to terms with co-existence in a world with plenty of room for all to thrive and find contentment.
Feel and show grattitude daily. Love a lot. Take nothing for granted.
Blow kisses.
But to the topic at hand--I think we should all prepare a bucket list and start checking it off right now. Because when you have a year left, you won't get to do nearly as much as movie characters get to do. As Lonnie says, money can be a real issue for many of us, but the sad reality is that when you can say with certainty that you have only a year left, your health is probably already a problem.
I discovered some unexpected things when I was diagnosed with cancer. One of the best things I learned is what I want to do most is what I am doing already. I want to live in this old house, in this old neighborhood. I want to watch things grow and bloom. I want to take pictures. But most of all I want to be with the people I know and love.
I also experienced that sharp reordering of priorities people talk about. I was suddenly free of work-related stress. The things most of us do for a living really don't matter a whole lot in the larger scheme of things, it turns out. Of course, now that it seems I've got much more than a year ahead of me, work resumes its annoying place in my life. That's OK. It's better than the alternative ;)
Learn how to use my new DSLR camera. I need time for that.
Do something with all of the photos on the bed in the guest room. What I want to do is put them in books -- chronologically -- and also scan them. Have no idea how long that will take!
The other thing isn't for me, but my son. I hope he finds some peace and a lot of clarity.
One of the main reasons for not completing that list in my 50th year was I had a heart attack at work about 1 1/2 months after turning 50. That was an eye opener. (Better than an eye closer!) So I've had a lot of time to meditate on the fact that, after all these years of believing I was still 21, there is a built in amount of fragility to my life. Its both sucks and is liberating.
Within 9 months of that event I had the great and singular pleasure of providing the hospice in my home for my dad. Good way to learn about acceptance and allowing others to gift you. Still, amongst the top two or three events of my life.
But if I had a year from today? Quit work, sure. Cash out (what's left) yes. Travel? Of course. But I think I would write a lot more, and get out of my head and into my heart and let all that stuff out. That would make me feel like I was leaving something of myself for subsequent family generations.
Kiss the grandkids. Say good bye to wife, children, stepson, and try to do for them what my dad did for me - let them see the grace in action I witnessed as he faded.
And of course, there would have to be at least one more trip to Italy.
1/2 the year right here and 1/2 in Door County Wisconsin.
I'm pretty blessed to have found what I want and who I want. My challenge now isn't to get it---it's to keep it.
Susan--you are one of my teachers for the day! Wow, I feel humbled by your comment and by what you have been going through. I'm also so happy to hear that your cancer is not getting the better of you. You have much to say. Thank you.
Julie, I hear you about your son...my heart is with you on that one.
Tim: The theme here is to be with our families and let them know how much we love them. I just spent 2 hours with a father and daughter (only 16). It's painful to see the damage we can cause our children with our mistakes. You seem to have an amazing family, something that is rare in this day and age. You are fortunate to have your family and they are fortunate to have you.
Roger: As always, it's pretty simple isn't it. Life is right here and right now and that's really all we ever have. Thanks for your comment.
I could get hit by a bus tomorrow crossing the street and I'm at peace with that for the most part.
I imagine I would surf the pipeline, fight a traditional Sumo wrestler on a mud dojo, walk a mile on the Antarctic continent, hike Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat (and kill the fucking bandits who murdered my teacher on the road to Angkor Wat) , then hide out in Thailand for a few weeks with BBE.
But the reality is I would probably do something more like what Susan Mitchell is doing, getting down with my own life and friends, or maybe hanging out on Enchanted Rock or Mount Bonnell, and just passing the time with anybody happened by.
1. Become a cool grandmother (NOT FOR A WHILE YET, OKAY).
2. Publish the damn book already.
3. Spend as much time as possible with my most favorite people, including those I've come to love and admire online but have never met.
The first two are from this post of mine: A Quiz Meme: Getting to Know You
I think the foremost item on my list is to visit all of the U.S. national parks. I'd love to spend no less than 3 weeks at each one, some maybe even more.
I want to visit England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Israel, and Australia. Well, other places as well but I'd start with those.
I want to see another hockey game in Madison Square Garden.
Good post, Mary. Rated and enjoyed. :-D
On a shallower note, perhaps my tears are more related to how small I feel after reading about everyone's fabulous travels! Gosh, do I feel like I've been nowhere. Have I mentioned I'm afraid to fly? ;)
I love that picture of you in Aspen.
You look so happy and healthy and beautiful.
Was that on your most recent trip?
My hubby also loves to ride his bike up steep hills.
Me, I do better on the ride down the steep hills but I do love bike riding.
I'm mastering the steep hills though.
I've been planning to read that book "One Year to Live" for a while and just forgot about it.
I'll have to get it soon....thanks for the reminder.
My Bucket List.
So many things to do...so little time.
The first thing I would do is search among storage boxes in my basement for some (many) journals that I wrote during the first two years of my daughter's life.
My hubby packed them away and does not know which box they are in.
I so want my daughter to have those journals....all the joy and love we shared together in on those pages.
I wrote about how all her beautiful smiles lit up my days.
Many poems among the pages.
I learned to knit last year and enjoy it so much.
I would find out who among my family and friends would like me to knit them a scarf (with all their favorite colors) and I would get busy with my knitting.
I would tell everyone to think about how happy it made me to make the scarf and to wear it and smile...just smile and feel my love.
Kind of sillly....I know!
I would run that marathon I've been planning on doing for the past few years.....I jog now so would be somewhat up to speed.
I'd love to do the Boston Marathon.
Traveling....lots of that....with my hubby and kids.
Israel, Australia, (already been to both places but want to go back.)
I would learn to scuba dive.
I would read all the books on my "to read list"
One more silly thing.
My sister and I have a love of pretty and colorful scraves.
I have way too many.
I would keep just a few of the scraves for myself and mail all the rest to my sister.
When I visited her this summer and we were shopping and found a gorgeous scarf that we both wanted, I let her have it and told her she had to share it with me when I come visit again.
That's just a few of the things on My Bucket List.
As always, Mary, your post was so very good.
Thank you so much.
I don't get on here much these days.
But when I do I always check to see what is new with you.
You are such a pleasure to read.
scene of autumn
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no
wind stirs.
Ryonen
At Rob St. Amant's request, I am putting together a post about an experience that if possible I would like to recreate to complete my bucket list. Probably not possible, but if I could cash out, I would buy my favorite home/place in the world at the south edge of Sydney, AU. Or, if I only had a year to live, I would ask the owners to rent to me by going back to Hong Kong for a year and let me die there.
You will see why once I get the story written and photos posted...even if not realistic, it is a pleasant one to have on the list.
I think I know by now that experiences are tough to duplicate, but again, nice to dream!
I read an article in Outside magazine called "100 things to do before you die." It inspired my wife and I to take a year off and travel around France.
If you'd like, I can scan in the article and send it to you.
We had a traumatic situation occur near here recently and I think it has brought everyone in this small community closer. It has certainly served as a shocking reminder of our own mortality. (Google the words "Skagit shootings"). After some more time has passed, I may be able to consider a bucket list-type scenario, but not right now. My brain can't go there yet. I certainly appreciate reading your entry and all these notes, though. It's very comforting to know we all think along pretty much the same lines about the things we cherish most in our lives.
So where is this mind fookin' seminar thing your're doing out here next March? Don't tell me! Mill Valley!!??
Picture Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cops - "Just messin' which ya!"
Really, I just want the quiet life I have now and a bit of traveling abroad before too much life goes by. I feel pretty content. I love our home and the things that we are doing to it to make it the home of our dreams. My family has a history of heart attacks and strokes that begins somewhere in the early 50's and extends to sometime around 70. I'm going to be 58 in November. I don't know what my "shelf life" is, but I know that I have been doing things that contribute some little bit to life, and that, in the end seems to be what I wanted to do all along.
Winter, a slow job market. In effect, I hibernated: ate home meals, slept full nights, exercised, started the slow process of calling my ex IT colleagues and regaining access to my old files so I could rebuild my portfolio. But what saved my sanity was reading the journals of Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who in 1893 sailed with a small crew in specially-designed ship, the Fram, to the north polar ice and intentionally trapped the ship in the ice, in an attempt to conquer the North Pole by riding the ice flow over it. This was a mesmerizing account of exploration with long stretches of nothing going on, just drifting with the ice, day by day, month by month, while Fridtjof alternately despaired and waxed existential into the pages of his journal. Descriptions of the groaning and cracking of the polar ice sea for miles and miles into the night. The hunting of polar bears. Scientific observations. Astronomical calculations. Rationed Christmas dinners with music and singing under the flickering northern lights.
He never reached the Pole but he gotten farther north than any human being in history, by drifting with the ice, not setting out against it. He and the Fram were released from the ice three years later and he returned to Norway a national hero. Within a month after I finished the book, I was back in Manhattan picking up some tentative freelance work, trudging the February snow. I'd lost nearly twenty pounds just from not being at my old job, and I'd gotten a chance to redeem myself in my own eyes, without ever feeling the need to rely on a giant corporation's good graces ever since.
For the bucket list: I want to visit the Fram, still preserved and on display in Norway, and I'd like to visit the North Polar sea, to hear the crack and groan of the great ice cap under the flickering northern lights. I guess I'd better hurry up before it's just the Great Polar Sea.
Why I find Johnny Walker and soda comforting keys back to my father. It is the drink of my childhood. I would steal sips from his glass.
I simply have led my life by these simple rules (which one day may be in a book).
1) Meet one new interesting person each day
2) Try two new things a week, you have never done before
With social networks #1 is much easier to accomplish, even if you don't leave your home. It has connect me with friends, business partners from around the world.
#2 Has put me on so many interesting journeys in film, NASCAR, animation, yoga, launching a new internet monetary system called iCoins and even writing politically in Open Salon.
I have blogged about some of this on my www.mediamensch.com blog. Last week, I also twitter on www.twitter.com/mediamensch and for people who want to have some coaching www.twitter.com/coachkaplan. Twitter is a new way to connect with people who you have common interests with.
Koakuma: Your attitude of acceptance is a teacher to me. It shows a life being well lived.
Rance: Why wait? Write those letters now. I think it's common for dying people to wish they had told the ones they love how much they love them. No time like the present.
Rich: Glad you're still alive! You are offering so much on this site. Hang in there...
Black Bart: I understand. There is a lot of fear when you have a parent who died young. It's a mind game. Fear can be huge. I feel for you and it sounds like you've got your priorities straight. The only thing to do really. Thank you for the poem--beautiful!
Bill S.: Have you visited the national park in Estes Park? Only 30 minutes from Boulder....right now the fall is spectacular there. A girlfriend and I went for a long hike last week. Jaw dropping stuff.
Sally: My mother did hint at having a twin pregnancy at one point in her life. We need to look into this!
Lainey: I agree with you. I think, at the end of the day, we are all so much interconnected than not. We all want to be seen and loved. Its really pretty simple.
Lisa: Get that story written!!!! I can't wait to read it.
Margie: Thanks for your wonderful response. I'm looking at all the things you want to do and I say GO FOT IT...the Boston Marathan may have to wait until next fall, but go for it. You are such a loving and special person...a gift I'm sure to all who come your way. That picture of me is from last fall, but I look the same this year (at least from that far away!). But I do the same ride every time I go and it's always spectacular.
Denis: Please do! I'm sending you a private message with my e-mail. Thanks!
Meredith: Write that children's book. Just write it. Even at 5 minutes a day. Finishing a manuscript is an amazing accomplishment.
Cathy: Simmer down.
Brinna: I love all the creative ideas.
Marco: What a journey you went on. I do hope you can go to Norway to see that ship. It reminds me of the book I read about Shackelton (sp?). I think sometimes what seems like bad news turns out to be the best thing that could happen to us. Thanks for your story.
Andrew: I'll check out your blog sites later...I'm getting ready to go hear Michelle Obama at the University of Colorado. It's a spectacular fall day, I'm hoping on my bike, taking the bike trail down to hear this real woman. I like that you set out to meet one new interesting person a day. They're always out there if we just wake up to it.
Marco: