The Bucket List Revised

Recently a national on-line publication listed 20 things everyone should have on their Bucket List. Here is the list, though perhaps out of order as I scrawled it down:
1. Own your own business
2. Live in a foreign country
3. Learn a foreign language
4. Buy a house
5. Drive coast to coast
6. Get heart broken
7. Be cheered by a crowd
8. Do something that really scares you
9. Adopt a pet
10. Take a stand
11. Do work that really inspires you/that you care about
12. Give something back
13. Take a leap of faith
14. Design and build a house
15. Make a meal with food you have raised/grown
16. Buy a piece of art just because you love it
17. Go wilderness camping
18. Take a sabbatical
19. Make a piece of furniture
20. Go scuba diving or snorkeling

Breaking waves from the Pacific at Cabo Rico (2009)

Having done all but #18 and #19, here are some of my own created and completed over the years:
1. Learn to tap dance and do "Singing in the Rain" and another number in the Idaho State Capital building on the marble floor. (Which, by the way, is one of the WORST things to dance upon; my feet and calves ached for days afterwards!)
2. Swim with dolphins (Everyone should have this experience, but the dolphins might get tired of it.)
3. Own and ride a motorcycle (this also covers #8 above)
4. Own my own horse (which also included other critters in #9)
5. Learn another foreign language (now I have three: French, Swedish and Spanish - did I say I had to be fluent? LOL!)
6. Write a screenplay (One was a third-place winner in a local theatre competition and the other is still waiting to be read by someone who might do something with it.)
7. Learn to waterski, then learn to slalom
8. Have my paintings displayed in a gallery, then I wanted them displayed in an international art show
9. Train a dog so well that it will respond entirely to hand signals
10. Live on a sailboat
11. Be an active member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, doing more than just checking boats for life preservers (ended up being part of a weekend team that patrolled St. Johns River one summer when ships were loading up supplies for Desert Storm)
12. Be acknowledged as a writer... (started this goal in 1973 and revised it upward after various jobs throughout my lifetime. I'm thinking about revising it again.)
13. Pass the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) qualifications written and oral exams (got my results on the day my son was born - I did pass)

Sunset near Deception Pass, WA (2010)

And there are probably tons more that I wrote down and accomplished, because one thing I learned is that if you write it down, you have made it real and you can do it.

Now I am at a point where I want to re-do the Bucket List, update it, revise it, re-think it. There are some things I am never going to do, partly because I don't have the desire to put in the effort for them, but others, like #1, require much more than just effort!
1. Climb Mt. Everest
2. Be a solo sailor in a long-distance race
3. Compete in a marathon
4. Learn how to drive a race car
5. Be a jockey
6. Fly to moon in a rocket/spaceship

And although a Bucket List is generally about some individual goal or accomplishment, I am seeing that I have some time left to do some things that have more value than just achieving something to prove I can do it; rather putting some energy toward making the world a little bit better, at least in my corner of it.

Washington State spring (2010)

The Revised List - for now...
1. Attend the church's 'Helper" meeting this week to see what I can volunteer to do
2. Plan to help my granddaughter select and plant some new plants in the planter box at her house
3. Go to Watercolor art class to learn enough to have something to show next year in the local show
4. Take some more interesting photographs; something I am truly pleased with
5. Draft the screenplay that keeps turning up in my head
6. Finish my physical therapy so I can take a trip back to Colombia
7. Continue to revise my Bucket List!!

In the words of Monty Python... "I'm not dead yet!"