The Bucket List...

I was touched by the ill rated Bucket List - it actually got me thinking about the experiences I have had, and those I have not had in my life - and those are the things that we carry on for, right? Getting so caught up in life, and the personal weaknesses that we bolster behind expensive suits and nice slacks seem to be unimportant when you think about being faced with the last time - I face the last time too much these days, but that is another story, I have come to grips with that, and the breathless anxiousness that it creates -

So, The Bucket List - I guess I should first start by telling you the things that I have done that would be in the list -

1. Go to a three day rock festival and love every second, every minute, every ounce of the atmosphere, the music, the people, and the rooming accomodations.

2. Get in touch with my feelings - not be afraid to pick a flower, press it, and save it - or if it is really special, give it away.

3. Get hit by a woman for pissing her off.

4. Spend a night as a homeless guy. Just a night - but it was an awakening experience.

5. Run on the Puget Sound with my best friend.

6. Reread or read the classics and discuss them.

7. Kiss the most beautiful woman and most beautiful girl in the same week.

8. Hike a mountain, a river, and see the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

9. Fall in love.

10. Fall deeper in love.

11. Have beautiful well rounded confident children.

12. Instill a sense of wonder in those children.

13. Make over $100k per year.

14. Buy my first new car.

15. Did I mention fall deeper in love?

16. Take a bath in Rose Petals.

Hell, if I was to keep listing these things off, it would go on forever, there have been so many wonderful things in my life, and so many so recently that I would not give them away - but the bucket list is intended for things I want to do before the last time - so here we go:

1. Climb Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, within a two week period with my best friend.
2. Kayak the Columbia River and spend a week in the wilderness camping from the Kayak.
3. Have another child.
4. Go to Scandanavia, hike the fjords, and run the bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
5. Not have to worry about time.
6. Just for once, play in a high stakes poker game.
7. Cry in the arms of a beautiful woman, and hold a beautiful woman while she cries.
8. Drive a NASCAR race car.
9. Take my son to Europe to backpack for a month.
10. Walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding.
11. Hold my grandchildren.
12. Live in the Pacific Northwest, the Desert, Maine, and inside of the green line in the Adirondacks.
13. Restore an old Victorian home.
14. Restore a Volkswagon Bug or Kharman Ghia.
15. Make love on a beach, a plane, a plateau, and a mountain.
16. Write a book.
17. Leave a positive legacy.
18. Go to Bali, and spend three weeks on a small private island.
19. Grow a pineapple.
20. Spend more time spending time, and not counting minutes.

That's twenty of them - there are more, but this is not as easy as I think it is- what do I really want to do - the most apparent things are the hardest ones to decide on, I want to be somewhere else today, and want to be there 100% - I mean, it is a pretty trivial thing, but coffee at Starbucks and a long walk to the park - that is right now the thing that I want, and is the hardest one of the things on my bucket list to have.

Love

George