Actually, it’s God’s list!
Category: Bucket Lists
FINISH IT!
You: “Who me? Are you talking to me?”
Your conscience: “YES. You. You have started a lot of things. Let’s finish one.”
You: “How?”
Your conscience: “I am SO glad you asked. Take a moment and write down all the reasons you can’t finish. If you need help, I have a short source for you to check out”:
You: “Wait. That’s not me in the photo!”
Your conscience: “It could be. It’s time to finish your thing — whatever it is before, well, you know.”
You: “That’s not fair! I’m busy.”
Your conscience: “Look through this PDF. We think you will find a few pages that can help you see what you’re afraid of, and how to fix it!”
Published!
This published book, Giving My Self to the Wind, is a way to say ‘I was here.’ I stole that idea from Thomas Kail, the director of Hamilton. I hope he doesn’t mind if I borrow it because it’s true. A headstone doesn’t do it, and I cannot hold my kids responsible for substantiating my existence.
My 298-page (!) book opens with a quote by Gustave Flaubert that also explains why I wrote and published Giving My Self to the Wind (GMSTTW): “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” Isn’t that why most people write?
The collection’s title comes from the penultimate line of a poem I wrote in my teens. My adoptive mother embroidered the poem word for word in a sampler: a photo of it is inside the book. The sampler became a source of inspiration, and a reason to write.
This anthology represents stories, essays, poems, character sketches, and a few articles. I cover many topics, themes, and sins. For that reason, I included an index! Without being over-the-top dense, the index saves the readers’ time. What’s in it? Thong underwear. Aging. Adoption. Coming of age. Unmarried and pregnant. Snoring. Caffeine. A fort! A convertible. Pain. Showing up. Meditation. Pajamas. Writing naked. Hookers. Dancers. Cell phones. Letters to my bio mom and dad are in there. I never met either one of them, I don’t think.
Writing a book is the height of courage if you don’t mind the depths of fear and deep plunge into the “sin” of pride. So, every artist of every kind faces the same angst, and I’m willing to hang it out because, in fact, it does say ‘I was here” in a way that not even my kids, or a photo, or a memory can do. Or a headstone.
So Now We Know
We thought we would like knowing. In fact everyone that knew liked knowing at first. But now it’s a little weird. It’s strange knowing when your sister is going to die. It’s simply surreal when people boarding planes are asked if they know.
It is difficult to cope now that you know when your spouse will die. Yes you knew they would. But now you when. It’s horrifically different.
People that know wish they didn’t. People that know find ways to pretend they don’t after all. Everyone is on edge.
Some people plan for it. They stage big going away parties, like they are moving, or retiring. Some people blaze down their bucket lists with heavy black check marks next to the cities and countries they have always wanted to see, the activities they’ve wanted to experience, the lives they’ve wanted to live.
Other people watch TV shows to engage with their lists. But they feel better about it, somehow, now that they’ve taken time to turn on the shows. Before they just talked about it.
Tasting and feeling and loving and living become more important for some. In fact, the wealthy people spend their time spending their wealth. At the same time, the poor people don’t do much differently, because they do not know when they will die. They cannot afford it. Or perhaps they don’t even know they can know.
The greedy people swoop. Like they do. And they make a mess of things. That hasn’t changed.
But now that we know, we change. Because it’s different now. Very different.