Bucket list
In typical Facebook fashion, a friend sent me a list to amend and then forward to more friends on my list. Usually, the lists run along the lines of “what do you like to do on a day off” or “name your 15 favorite CDs.” Today’s list was more interesting.
The list I received today asked for 10 items on my “bucket list,” meaning things I’d like to do before I die. (The name comes from the expression “kicking the bucket” and was also the title of a recent Jack Nicholson movie about the same subject.) It didn’t take me long to think of things I may one day tick off my list. There’s altruism, self-development and a little selfishness in my 10 items:
1. See my three grandchildren graduate from high school, at least.
2. Travel to Europe with my husband.
3. Spend time in a really nice spa just getting pampered.
4. Publish a book.
5. See the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.
6. Live on the beach permanently.
7. Run another marathon.
8. Open a Catholic Worker house.
9. Get a Montblanc fountain pen.
10. Read all the books on my shelves.
It struck me how some of these list items are in direct contrast to one another: How many Catholic Workers who live in voluntary poverty would even think of wanting to have a Montblanc fountain pen or being pampered in a spa–if only for a day? I thought of the entry in Dorothy Day’s diaries from The Duty of Delight where she writes that women are always interested in clothes, no matter how old they are. There’s a certain frisson in holding something so beautiful that it appeals to the senses without necessarily being something you would, or could, actually ever own.
Some of my choices made it on the list just because of curiosity. I love fountain pens and Montblanc is the epitome of fine writing instruments. One of their collectors’ series featured pens commemorating William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, three of my favorite authors. I can look through the Montblanc mall window like a child outside a candy store just ogling their elegantly crafted pens and dream about writing with one. I don’t think I could ever feel good paying hundreds of dollars for something to write with when my Parker fountain pens do a fine job, but looking doesn’t cost anything.
Wanting to improve my health by running again and being blessed with more years of life to see my grandchildren grow are honorable things. I would rather fulfill those two items than the other eight. Traveling with my husband would be a fine thing, too, since I enjoy his company now as much as I did when we first met in 1981. After 25 years of marriage, we still like working side-by-side and conversing.
It was fun to write my list and to come to grips with choices that are so divergent. It’s not likely that I could ever check off all 10, but it doesn’t matter. Flights of fancy never require boarding passes.
