My guess is that each of you has seen lists of items such as “Number each thing you have experienced,” or “Identify places where you have been.” They are kind of fun, have little or no benefit, but often remind you of all you have experienced, what you wish you had experienced, or relieved you never experienced.

Recently I again watched the 2007 movie “The Bucket List” starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Lots of laughter, some tears, and a plethora of philosophical ideas about life and death. Perhaps recent  birthdays have given me pause about my bucket list as well as some of my fantasies.

My bucket list experiences. . .

• Zip lining in Costa Rica
• Swimming with dolphins
• Authoring 4 books
• Flying under Golden Gate Bridge in a helicopter
• Helping build a mountain cabin
• Cruising through the Panama Canal
• Cruising both Mediterranean & Caribbean seas
• Earning a Ph.D. (Humbling, some call it “Post Hole Digger”)
• Riding an elephant in Thailand
• Shooting a gun – only once
• Losing my way in Istanbul’s Gand Market
• Being on television’s channel news
• Protesting in public
• Parasailing over Puget Sound
• Cruising Venice & Gig Harbor’s Gondolas
• Teaching Kobe, Japan college students

What is NOT on my bucket list. . .

• Breaking any more bones
• Getting a tattoo
• Running a marathon
• Parachuting from a plane
• Ice cliff climbing
• Running with the bulls
• Seeing again the hopelessness in Haiti
• Being detained by ICE agents

What I fantasize . . .

• Captain a submarine – “Give me the Conn”  Sean Connery
• Perfectly playing a Bach Prelude & Fugue on the “Great Organ” (with its 8,514 pipes) in New York’s Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.
• Walking through the homes where I once lived.
• Fly with the Blue Angels.
• Sit on the floor with a room full of puppies.
• Author a best-selling novel – $$$$

Back to reality. . .

I feel blessed to wake up in the morning and gaze out the window to welcome the day and all it brings.

I’m recently read a book about Annie, a 63-year old Maine farmer, who embarks upon an impossible journey to see the Pacific Ocean in California before cancer ends her life. In 1954 with no money, only a cast off brown gelding named Tarzan and her Sancho Panza mutt of a dog, she leaves Minot, Maine for her trek across the U.S. She tells of blizzards, climbing mountains, and clinging to narrow shoulders as trucks whizz by at terrifying speeds. Perhaps more importantly, though, is her story of the extraordinary people she meets along the way.  The book title is The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts.

Now that is a true bucket list. . .

Carol Tamparo