Don’t be alarmed. I’m not planning on giving up and dying any
time soon. My friend Cinder, the breast
cancer survivor, told me, “You will never wait on your bucket list again.” This comment reminded me of a book I bought
several years ago named No Opportunity Wasted by Phil Koeghan, the host
of The Amazing Race. I’ve never watched
that reality show but I remember seeing him on Oprah promoting his book and the
Discovery Channel’s newest show with the same name. The author had a near-death experience at the
age of 19, during a scuba diving incident.
After surviving the harrowing experience, he decided to make a checklist
of all the things he wanted to do before he died.
I’ve always found it
fascinating to find out what makes other people tick and why. It prompted me to make my own list almost ten
years ago. I’ve added to it way more
than I’ve checked them as “done”. A few
of the “dreams” on the list are just that…dreams. I love to imagine myself, along with Tim
McGraw, riding 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu, but a 1999 discectomy left
me feeling a little less…um…immortal. Sometimes, like playing the lottery, it’s fun
to imagine what you would do if money…or guts were no object. It’s
no wonder I love my job. I hope, if
nothing else, this post inspires someone to make their own bucket list. Let me re-phrase that….WRITE DOWN their
bucket list. You know… the checklist
like the one you would make before you went to the grocery store, ideally with
little boxes intended for the purpose of someday being checked.
As most of you well
know, I’m not shy about sharing my innermost thoughts and dreams, so why not
post my bucket list? Here goes….
___Ride in a gondola in Venice
___Learn how to speak Italian
___Swim with dolphins
___See Bruce Springsteen in concert
___Ride a Vespa through Tuscany
___Learn how to ride a motorcycle and
ride it through Napa Valley
___Rent out one of the “painted
ladies” in Haight/Ashbury in San Francisco and live like
hippies for awhile.
___Horseback riding on the beach
___Horseback riding on the beach
___Learn how to play a blues song on
the harmonica
___ Ride a bull
___ Take the Cayamo (A Journey
through Song) cruise ship the Lyle Lovett, John Prine,
and John Hiatt. Almost every year,
they, along with about 20 other artists,
perform and cruise to the British Virgin Islands aboard the Norweigan Pearl.
___ Tandem Skydive
_x_Stay in a haunted house for the
night (Waverly
Hills Sanitarium, Louisville 2010)
___Visit the Jewish museum in NYC
_x_Paint an Impressionistic work of
art (Ok. I cheated a bit. I can’t draw so I bought
a drawing from the Metropolitan Museum of
Art of “Ballerina in Pink” by Edgar
Degas.
I basically “colored” with oil paintings.
___Experience Carnivale in Venice and
Rio de Janeiro
___Be Samantha Brown (The Travel
Channel) for a day
___Ride the fastest, longest,
tallest, wildest rollercoaster in the world, wherever they
may be.
___Have a real Argentinian teach me
to dance the Tango
___Ride in a hot air balloon in Loire
Valley, France
___See the tulip festival in Holland
___Tour the Grotta Azzurra (Blue
Cave) in Capri, Italy
___Build a Victorian dollhouse
exactly the way I want it, and then build a real life-size
version in Versailles, Ky. Run
it as a Bed & Breakfast.
_x_ Learn how to make stuffed grape
leaves (7/20/13)
___Learn how to make pottery
___Be an editor of a magazine
___Publish a book named “Keeping You
Abreast”, so that some of the 12.5% of women
who are diagnosed with breast cancer, don’t feel so alone.
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